


Salacious

by Noccalula



Series: The Salacious Saga [1]
Category: Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Adult Content, All Consensual All The Time, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Sex Shop, Alternative Lifestyles, Anal Sex, BDSM, Bisexuality, Consensual Infidelity, Cunnilingus, Deaf Character, Deaf Clint Barton, Disabled Character, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/F, F/M, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Mutual Masturbation, Open Relationships, Oral Sex, Other, Pegging, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Public Sex, Rimming, Rough Sex, Sex, Sex Shop, Sex Toys, Threesome, Threesome - F/F/M, Threesome - F/M/M, Well not everybody but most of them, all the sex, maxicest, pansexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:57:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 48,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4916953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noccalula/pseuds/Noccalula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanov, Northeast Regional Manager of Salacious Adult Novelties LLC (Property of Tony Stark).</p><p><i>Full Definition of SALACIOUS</i><br/>1<br/>:  arousing or appealing to sexual desire or imagination :  lascivious<br/>2<br/>:  lecherous, lustful<br/>— sa·la·cious·ly adverb - Merriam-Webster Dictionary<br/>— sa·la·cious·ness noun</p><p>Natasha loves her job - it's everything else she's not really sure about. Nearly thirty, feeling rudderless, and in an increasingly grey-fuzzy, what-exactly-are-we-doing-here relationship with Clint Barton, Nat's taking stock of the shards of what she thought was expected of her, her poly-and-plentiful love (love?) life, and the ups, downs, upside downs, on tops and from behind's of running the prize jewel in Tony Stark's string of sex shops. </p><p>  <i>Alternately: How Wanda and Natasha Became Best Friends Selling Dildos</i></p><p>(Head's up - this is graphically, comically, unflinchingly, gynecologically sexual)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flicking The Bean

**Author's Note:**

> So, a Sex Shop AU is hardly as novel an idea as I originally thought it might be. Coffee Shop AU's are charming, High School AU's are relatable, College AU's are usually ultra-relatable, but Sex Shop AU's are a wildcard. Part of the inspiration is that my fiance worked for a very busy sex shop for a year in Florida, and between the two of us (I was at Planned Parenthood at the time), the "Hi honey, how was your day?" dinner conversations were wiiiild. So, being second-hand familiar with the ins and outs of running such a store, I've always wanted to put that narrative to use. 
> 
> Secondly, Natasha Romanov is a fucking wonderful character who tends to be overlooked and criminally underutilized pretty much everywhere BUT fanfiction, and for fics like this, it's usually starring Darcy. I've always had it in my head to do a series surrounding my beloved Black Widow; even stronger at the completion of Matt Fraction's Hawkeye was my urge to do something with what I think is the definitive version of Clint Barton as well. I've always shipped the shit out of it in the MCU, so here's my chance. 
> 
> As usual, I'm taking a little from column a, a little from column b in regards to setting - mostly MCU (including an eventual cameo from our friend Matt Murdock), some nods to the comic canon, and a whole lotta bluster in between. 
> 
> Feedback is always welcome and encouraged, I hope you enjoy the story and even if it's not your bag, thank you for clicking.

_Come Inside,_ says the coy neon banner above the front door.

“Salacious on Fifth, how may I help you?”

The phone cord curls around Natasha’s wrist as she moves to cradle the receiver between her ear and shoulder, slim fingers jamming the buttons on the cash register. _Jo Agape Lube, small bottle, 5.99. 20 sticks of incense_ – this girl put 22 in the bag thinking Natasha wouldn’t catch it, so she slides it off to the side and gives the client a blank look before going back to ringing her up. The man on the phone wants to know if they’re selling the Twerking Party Ass fuck toy yet and Natasha wants to scream because he’s the fifth person to call about it this week – why in the fuck is that thing white, anyway? Natasha’s been to parties to the point that they all blur together but she can’t recall a single instance of a white girl twerking as compellingly as any of the black girls she’s seen do it – and she knows it’s going to be on the order inventory the moment she tells Tony that. Natasha can stock pig-nosed gimp masks and little person squirter porn and a butt plug so huge that there’s no way it’s for recreation so much as to frighten away potential suitors (Clint calls it “The Destroyer”) but she’s going to draw the line at a fake twerking ass. Something about it is just horrifying, and she’s seen some shit in this shop and managed not to judge thus far so that’s got to be saying something.

Hanging up the phone is a pain in the ass - Tony refuses to buy a cordless since the usual night clerk, Whitney, took the old cordless phone into the backroom, proceeded to smoke a joint and have a nap and subsequently overslept the shift change – but Natasha manages, snaking her arm free from the fittingly bondage-esque knot and punching in the last few figures. _Doc Johnson Velvet Touch, 8 inch, a beginner’s vibrator, 22.99. One sample pack of Liquid V clitoral stimulant_ (the tester on the counter was raking in buys like mad this week), _4.99._

“Your incense is two over, would you like to remove them or get more?”

The girl looks startled, deer in the headlights. She’s an amateur shoplifter, nowhere near casual or calm enough to be pro; Natasha figures she lifts lipstick from Target from time to time and fancies herself an outlaw for it. She stammers out a nervous laugh, feigns what she calls a “blonde moment” and takes two of the sticks out of the bag, laying them off to the side. Natasha’s the kind of clerk who might have let it slide if it was a repeat customer or someone she knew considering how cheap the incense actually is for the store, but it’s the principle of the thing. That’s why Tony calls her his best employee and made her head manager of this store: his most loathsome money pit at the end of 2013, now the top selling sex shop in the region in 2015. Natasha Romanov has a reputation for turning around a lost cause (there’s a joke about Clint in there – just ask him, he’d make it himself). It’s not a big infringement, not worth making a scene over in the least bit. Part of this store’s success has hinged on the fact that Natasha makes women feel comfortable enough to not just look around the store but to actually ask questions about how things work, bring their most personal sexual conundrums and questions to the table. Nat considers herself something of a sexpert at this point, maybe even a counselor. Not bad for someone who spent five years on a four year degree and promptly did nothing with it. What the fuck do you even do with a Bachelor’s in Russian History, anyway?

“That’ll be thirty-six twenty.”

The customer fishes out a debit card and gives Natasha a hopeful smile, some sort of quiet olive branch asking for forgiveness from the pretty redhead behind the counter. Nat gives back a small smile – she could be a total asshole and ice the girl, but it was two sticks of incense for shit’s sakes, not the creepy guy who tried to bring back used sex toys because he wanted to get off on the revolt on Natasha’s face. She scans the card – girl says credit – and gives her the slip to sign before she’s on her way with her new sex loot.

Sighing, Natasha walks away from the register and onto the leopard print carpet of the main floor, taking a long moment to stretch until her baby tee is riding up over her pale belly and she finally feels her back pop. There’s a comfy chair behind the register, tucked back out of customer view for when she needs a break but so much of this job involves being diligent about what the customers are doing inside the store. There’s been more than one occasion where Natasha’s had to threaten to call the cops to get some gross dude that’s jerking it through basketball shorts as he stares at the porn dvd’s the fuck out of the store. Pervs of all stripes frequent the place – ‘pervs’ in the non-derogatory sense and derogatory sense alike. There’s lifers, like the doms that come in and order their collar-wearing subs around the store. There are porn aficionados, mostly lonely older men as very few people still buy porn on DVD anymore but them. There are young women fresh off their eighteenth birthday, coming in to walk around and giggle at the sights with the odd brave one or two anteing up for their beginner vibrators. Hell, there are women in their thirties, forties, fifties and up, coming in for first time sex toys. Those are Natasha’s favorites, the ladies who are just beginning to figure themselves out – they’re her badge of honor.

The stand of Dona products – mostly lotions, perfumes, body powders that are absolutely beloved by strippers as well as Nat herself, who has the entire Late Night line for when she goes all out – is lit by a halo of small bulbs like the framing around a glamor mirror, a beacon of white light amongst what’s mostly neon pink and purple under the few muted fluorescents. Tony’s a big fan of ‘mood lighting’ as he calls it – “not dark enough to be a strip club but for the love of fuck, Natasha, don’t keep it lit up like a doctor’s office in here” – and though he did an admittedly tasteful redecorating on the place six months ago, the leopard print carpet and neon lights have stayed. Nat doesn’t actually mind either – it gives the place a very specific ambience that she can’t mistake for anything else. The cubicle job she had before – customer service for an insurance company – was so soul-suckingly sterile that there’s nothing she can think of in this place that makes her even consider going back to the ‘straight’ world. The living here is good, she’s finally got benefits and really good health insurance, and she gets to test sex toys, supplies, lubes, etc at will; Tony insists that a salesperson who can actually speak from experience is a superior salesperson, and he’s not wrong. Luxury items still have a cost, but she’s given an x-amount of ‘free money’ to play with every month to try out the merchandise.

This job is the best thing that’s happened to her in ten years. It’s definitely the best thing that’s happened to Clint or any of Natasha’s other, less frequent sexual partners as well. Adventure’s the norm now. Nat has no immediate family but if something awful happens and she and Clint both die, his brother is going to pass the fuck out when he cleans out their apartment.

The chiming bell above the door lets her know she’s got an incoming customer, or more likely, Tony. It is about three pm, after all.

“There’s my favorite,” Tony says happily, whipping off expensive sunglasses and helping himself to check the register with an impressed whistle, “Wow, Nat, you’re just under a grand on a Tuesday afternoon. That’s impressive.”

“Not as much as you might think,” Natasha replied, picking up a Swiffer duster from the glass counter and dusting around the Lelo display, “Big purchase this morning, guy dropped four-hundred on a credit card for his old lady. Somebody’s gonna have a great weekend.”

Tony snorts a laugh in response, moving to shuffle through the paperwork under the drawer, “You okay on receipt paper? I swear we’re moving to a fully electronic POS system by the summer.”

“Heard that before,” Natasha smirks, looking over at her boss.

“Hey now,” Tony holds up open palms in defenselessness, “I know the one I want, they just have to tweak it to my specifications.”

Tony Stark made business news after he took his trust fund and bailed out of his Dad’s company and by proxy, his legacy. It was an unpopular move, especially with his father, and anyone looking at the situation from the outside might see Tony Stark walking away from a multi-billion dollar company to own, admittedly, the largest and most well regarded string of sex shops in the state as a failure, some sort of downgrade. What they don’t realize is that via his smart, quiet investing and managing of the chain, he’s sitting just shy of a million net worth on his own work and not a weapon company he didn’t think he could work for and still sleep at night. Furthermore, he’s happy. Like, really happy. He’s a smartass and dials the smarm factor all the way up to eleven on any given day, sure, but he’s a good dude in Natasha’s estimation. He’s never once said anything suggestive to her, insinuated that he wanted to fuck her or coerced her for her job, which was saying more than she expected from a guy who runs a chain of sex stores. God knows, she might not have rejected him had it come up organically and outside of work constraints – he’s older than her but very good looking, clever and well-spoken with a voice that goes a mile a minute, like he’s barely keeping pace with his own brain. He’s smart. But he treats her like she’s his friend as well as his employee and keeps a policy of one-hundred percent trust in her judgment – the customer is NOT always right, and if she feels even slightly disrespected, he backs her having free reign to eject someone from the store, paying client or no.

“Yeah, well, tell them to get it tweaked already. The office looks like a bomb went off in a filing cabinet.”

“Wouldn’t that just look like, I dunno, fire?” Tony shoots back, fiddling with the display for a Lelo wand, “How’s the charger for the testers?

“Still fritzing out,” Natasha comes back over, finally allowing herself to collapse into the chair and get off her screaming feet for a moment as she almost groans in relief from doing so, “Somebody tried to get me to sell them the tester for half price again.”

Tony grimaces, “Did you tell them how many people touch this thing in a day?”

Nat scoffs a laugh and rolled her eyes, “Yeah, like that stops them.”

“How charming.”

“Tell me about it,” Nat fiddles with the remote to the chair’s massage pad, which only works sometimes and barely so right now, kneading half-heartedly at the middle of her back, “I think I’m gonna pick up the dual wand with my trial-fund. Finally just gonna sacrifice the whole thing.”

“Oh ho,” Tony raises his eyebrows – the luxury toys could eat your whole trial fund for the month if you went high enough – and takes a moment to rub the scuff he’d just put on the glass case by leaning against it with his sleeve, “Big spender this month.”

“Well, I keep getting questions about it, so I figured I might as well see what it’s all about. I can’t imagine it’s actually worth just under two hundred dollars, Stark, I don’t care what the company says.”

Tony scoffs, giving her a ‘puh-lease’ smug look, “Like I order anything luxury that has less than a four-point-six star rating. Take your pick, then, just write it on your form. And tell Clint I said he’s welcome.”

A smirk pulls up the corner of Natasha’s thick lips as she cuts her eyes over, “I think Maria will benefit more from that decision than Clint, but we’ll see.”

“Hey, whatever works,” Tony remarks casually, “Just remember, that material is porous so it’s not for b-holes. Tell him to roll a rubber on it if he’s gonna use it too.”

Natasha wads up a paper towel from the side table and throws it at him. It futilely lands a few feet away, a sad crumple of white against the loud carpet.

“Nice shot, Romanov.”

“If it were heavier it woulda been right between your eyes, boss.”

Tony’s smirk leans more into a smile and he pulls his glasses back on, “You eat lunch yet? Need me to bring you anything?”

“Nope, thanks,” Natasha sits up with a groan, cracking her knuckles, “Already ate leftovers, gonna go to Five Guys tonight I think.”

“Ooo, Five Guys,” Tony backs towards the door, snapping his fingers and pointing at her the way he does when he suddenly remembered something he probably should have told her at the beginning of the conversation, “Oh! I forgot, I hired someone to manage the Brownsville store.”

She looks up at him with mild curiousity, “Oh? You didn’t promote Whitney, then?”

Natasha can see Tony’s eye roll, even behind his glasses. Whitney was an ex of sorts, the best Nat could figure anyway, and he felt like he owed her the position – which is how she got away with more shit than she should have. He was unlikely to fire her unless she robbed the store, which Natasha didn’t put too far outside the realm of possibility at the end of the day.

“No, tempting as that thought is. She’s never done a sex shop before, the new girl, but she was a coordinator at TJ Maxx so she’s got some management skills. I’m gonna send her here for you to train her, starting Thursday – think you’re up for it?”

Nat gives a long groan, standing up and physically sulking, pretending to kick at an invisible rock, “Why do I gotta? Training the newbies is so weird, they act like idiots those first weeks.”

“Not this one, this one’s good,” Tony insists, leaning against the door until the chime goes off but not yet departing, “I think she’ll catch on fast, but she needs some work with her customer service. She’s a little surly.”

“Surly?” Natasha can’t hide the smirk as she gives him a faux-glare, “I thought you said you were done hiring surly women after me?”

“I thought I was, but you know what?” he grins, finally pushing the door open, “You’re just so damn likeable, I figured maybe lightning might strike twice. Bye!”

***

Broaching thirty as if it were a conversation she really didn’t want to have meant that Natasha was taking some serious inventory of her own life, starting with her apartment. It was an arduous process that began some months earlier when Natasha got curious at Target and ended up buying a copy of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The KonMari Method, which was by a Japanese girl with some supposedly miraculous system that would help you get rid of everything in your home you didn’t need anymore or never needed to begin with. It worked, in a sense – Natasha read it, got rid of the maybe ten things she wasn’t actively using in her home, and gave the book to Maria Hill, who promptly went KonMari batshit and had to be talked down out of giving away half her wardrobe in what became referred to as Maria’s Minimalist Crisis of 2015. By nature Natasha tended not to keep too many things around – she valued her portability and commitment was still spooky, even with one foot in the door of Actual Adulthood. Something about that made her feel even worse, that she was at a point in her life that should have necessitated some hard line committing to _something_ or the other and yet there she was, just as skiddish about the idea as she was a decade ago.

Clint moving in had been a big deal. It started when his brother Barney lost the apartment they were staying in over one too many Drunk & Disorderly’s and spent a month couch surfing through mutual friends until Natasha finally drank a handle of Jack and tried to ask him to move in as casually as possible. She threw up on his shoes, he took her home, he stayed. Really as simple as that. He didn’t have much more stuff than she did, his job as freelance security detail meant a lot of weird hours and long absences, and he was generally as sarcastic and unforthcoming as she was so they meshed surprisingly well. Neither of them was interested in monogamy, and though they had both reaffirmed that they were also not looking for anything too serious – this was a friends-with-benefits who lived together scenario, or at least that was the agreed upon label – but it was hitting that foggy gray area where there was nothing to be said or done without exposing the carefully ignored question of where exactly it was they were, where in the hell they were going.

Natasha had always kept a rotating roster of hook-ups, which had started off as a handful of boys but widened out into more varied options by the time her college Sapphic explorations had turned over a couple of stones in her self-awareness. Now it was open season in terms of gender – same as her own, different from her, no gender at all, both genders, whatever – and most other qualifiers, but she kept the number small for her own sanity’s sake. It was easier to fall into the groove of really good sex with a scant handful of partners willing to commit the time to the course material than it was to consistently have one night stands and expect miracles; of course, some women were perfectly capable of doing that, and whoever they were, they had every ounce of Natasha’s jealous ire. Orgasms took work for her if another person was involved, hence why sex toys had been so revelatory.

Maria had been a friend since junior year of college, a business major with a no-bullshit gift for busting the balls (metaphorical or literal) of any asshole who dared talk down to her, which happened a lot because she was a/ a woman and b/ stereotypically pretty. Natasha knew she was pretty, had always attracted a lot of attention from men and probably earlier than it should have been, but she regarded herself as more striking than beautiful, something stranger than the average pretty girl. Maria was classically beautiful, sharp bone structure on even sharper blue eyes and delicate, perfected little features. She’d never been with a girl whereas Natasha had experimented with threesomes with her college boyfriend; the first time Maria confessed the (mutual) attraction, Nat suggested they act on it. It was sex. Natasha didn’t necessarily equate it with intimacy. Maria wanted to keep it limited to kissing, “boob stuff” and maybe some fingering. Natasha agreed to the terms. As soon as Maria got her new friend naked and laid out on her perfectly pristine Ralph Lauren bed set, eyes running over all that pale skin and red hair and curves like a California highway, she lost any sense of squeamishness and ate Natasha’s pussy for an hour, surprising the both of them with her own enthusiasm.

Needless to say, it was a revelation for everyone involved. Now they fucked once a week like clockwork on Wednesday evening, the only time Maria didn’t have blocked off for her very demanding medical management job or equally busy social life. They squeezed in lunch where they could, shopped on occasion (mostly Maria shopping, mostly Natasha nearly gagging at the prices in Anthropologie), and got brunch on most Sundays but they fucked on Wednesday evening. It was their thing.

Clint of course knew Maria in passing and vice versa, both holding one another in well enough regard though it made not an ounce of difference to Natasha if they did or didn’t. It was more convenient this way, sure, but she didn’t do a lot of considering other people’s opinions against her own desires. Fortunately, it was working out nicely here.

Clint and Maria were the only main fixtures on the roster. There was a middle aged guy, Phil, who stayed gone for work most of the time but liked to ménage with Nat and Clint when he was in town to mitigate some bisexual tendencies of his own with the calming presence of a woman. Bruce was more of a friend than anything else, but his anxiety and antisocial tendencies kept him from seeking out new people’s company unless he was under duress; he was handsome and smart and it hadn’t taken much for Natasha to convince him they should fuck, “in the name of science.” He reached out both platonically and as a booty call, but not often for either. At current press time, these were the only repeat pickings, and she hadn’t heard from either in quite some time. This might have bothered her had she not been so busy with the tandem of work and trying to figure out how to trade out a lifetime’s worth of thrifted and curb-knapped furniture and knick knacks into what she thought a nearly thirty year old woman’s apartment was supposed to look like.

One thing that she was sure wasn’t a fixture of an average young woman’s apartment was the jewelry cabinet come (cum?) sex toy treasure chest. It looked innocuous enough, pale wood with lacquer and old pulls on every knob, doors opening out of the sides and the top lifting up to reveal compartments and drawers and spaces meant primarily for someone with a shit ton of jewelry, maybe Liz Taylor or someone. It had been in a Humane Society thrift store for fifteen bucks and she’d practically run screaming out of the building with it in her arms, guarding it like a mother bear until the sales clerk came to get the tag. It looked like it belonged on Pinterest. However, if an ambitious robber were to break into the Natasha/Clint apartment (and he’d be an idiot to do it, given how well armed Clint usually was and how scant the apartment stood at the end of the day), he wouldn’t be greeted by waiting jewelry, oh no. The ring cushions were filled with nipple clamps of varying weights and sizes, a small row of change-out jewelry for Nat’s clitoral hood piercing across the top. There were handcuffs instead of bracelets, nearly every kind imaginable from the fuzzy soft-lined that needed nothing harder than a good flex to pop out of to the industrial strength kind and it’s three sets of safety keys. Wrist and ankle restraints (above-the-door, the kind that strap to the corners of the bed), two different ball gags (Natasha’s mouth is bigger than Clint’s, oddly), blindfolds in varying fabrics, a whole drawer of stimulants and lubricants in all sorts of flavors or consistencies (water based, silicone based, anal, flavored, tingling, cooling, warming, numbing): a professional assortment of accessories of a different kind.

Of course, this was all prelude to the main event in the bottom three drawers: vibrators atop vibrators atop dongs atop more phalluses atop vibrators. Hard vibes, g-spot vibes, jelly dongs, suction cup dildos for shower walls or the tub if she felt particularly freaky, a few Rabbits, a double sided dildo that existed primarily as a weapon that she liked to slap Clint with when he least expected it, a strap-on harness, a strapless strap on (Feeldoes, look ‘em up, they’re hard fucking work but if your pelvic floor muscles are worthy it’s the Mjolnir of strap-ons). Luxury items – the Lelo Ilsa, the JimmyJane Form Two, the Latin Nights UR3 cock that was so realistic that it unsettled Clint (‘oh my fucking god there’s even veins on this thing’) and her beloved Hitachi Magic Wand – had their own drawer, lined with a scrap piece of crushed velvet because these were as close to the crown fucking jewels as she was ever gonna get. Easily a few grand’s worth of sex toys and accessories, all stowed in a fifteen dollar jewelry stand. Somehow it just seemed appropriate. It might have hidden her erstwhile proclivities well enough were it not for the fact that her large bathroom was constantly filled with drying, recently cleaned sex toys or lingerie, sometimes post-sexy times and sometimes just because she had brought them home and wanted them ready for whenever the mood struck and the last thing she needed was a toy that someone’s grubby test-y hands had been on inside of her.

Despite the flora and fauna of her sex toy collection, it wasn’t as though these were all necessary when the mood struck, or even that the mood was constantly striking. Natasha considered herself to have a high sex drive – a good match for Clint’s equally high one – but it didn’t dominate her life. There were plenty of nights on the couch with Netflix and take out. If anything, all this ‘exotic erotic’ had become normalized; Natasha sometimes forgot that ‘normal’ people didn’t have room-volume conversations about dildos or squirting with people without some sort of shirking shame. While espousing the logistics of double penetration to Maria, she once glanced over and noticed a mother with two young children gaping open-mouthed at her in the bathroom at Whole Foods. Natasha, constitutionally incapable of much shame, only stared back, shrugged, and finished drying her hands to leave with a “Whatever, lady, your kids barely know where their noses are, I don’t think it’ll stick” while Maria apologized profusely. The irritation between them lasted well into the evening, where it provided them the elbow grease and extra push they needed to finally figure out what tribadism was all about.

Natasha hit the doorway to her bedroom and shirked her shoes into a dilapidating wicker basket, sighing with some relief that the day was over. All in all her sales were still impressive but it was nowhere near as busy as it was going to get now that tax return season was coming around. Soon it’d be enough to keep her on her feet for the entire shift, and training a new manager was nearly a full time job in and of itself. At least the new girl would get some hands on experience very quickly, even if it was a throw-‘er-to-the-wolves to do it in March. Bare feet cool against the hard wood, Nat crossed the floor and climbed onto her messy, unmade bed to unbag and unbox the newest baby in the luxury collection: the Lelo Soraya. Lelo’s engines were always stellar but their packaging drove it home – gorgeous, soft silicone, highest grade quality that’s body safe on the market. The Soraya was built specifically for g-spot stimulation and had an extended piece for simultaneous clit action, a good combo for Natasha’s preferred “blended” orgasm of both (g-spot orgasms were fun but hard to come by, clit orgasms were more powerful but brief and tiring, working up the two was usually the quickest way to absolute bliss in her well-worn path of methods). They were all pretty but this damn thing looked like it needed to be mounted with its own lighting somewhere in the living room.

Unceremoniously, Natasha shirked her jeggings (“They’re not pants,” Maria always points out, prompting Natasha to quote the meme every time: “Oh, I’m sorry, I left how much I care in the back pocket of the jeans I’m never gonna wear again!”) and panties to the floor and laid back, half tempted to just succumb to a nap despite the beautiful, freshly charged vibe in her hand (it had spent the last hour at the store prepping for homecoming in every sense of the word). Clint would get home around ten, they’d probably go for late night pizza, he may or may not wanna fuck depending on the mood of the day but there was usually no problem in getting her to come around for round two if so. That left her plenty of time to get pleasantly acquainted with the new toy in the quiet still of her apartment that she so loved, even if she wasn’t sure it looked anything like a thirty year old’s apartment was supposed to look.

She pressed the business end carefully against her clit, the sensation sending a cascade of pleasant little shivers down her spine and making her toes curl against the sheets.

Clint got in at ten fifteen and found Natasha sleeping with her mouth open, naked from the waist down and with the vibrator still buzzing weakly in her hand, lying uselessly against her thigh. Smirking for a moment, he reached for the vibrator – _is this new?_ – and turned it off, pulling up the quilt around her before disappearing to the bathroom to at least rinse the thing off with warm water. It looked expensive, and he wasn’t sure what kind of cleaner to use, so this would have to do.

***

Natasha’s up and making herself avocado toast when Tony texts her.

_New girl will be in tomorrow, I’m sending you her orientation packet via email, please print when you get in. Her name is Wanda Maximoff. See you later. *sunglasses emoji*_

Natasha sends him the poop coil emoji and goes back to making toast.

 

 

 

 


	2. Buffing The Clam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Wanda Maximoff, stage left. 
> 
>  
> 
> _She’s thin, bordering on waifish, and a few inches shorter than Natasha herself. She’s got a silver ring on damn near every finger, more than one on a few, and her nails are chipped with some dark red polish – OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark, Natasha could spot that one from three miles away given that she’s gone through two bottles in as many years. Wanda stood up straight and tugs at the hem of her sweater, clearly a little uncomfortable as she darted her eyes from Natasha’s face across the store. Nat considered that they might actually be soulmates. She wants to be best friends, immediately. “Rebel Girl” starts playing in her head._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't google the Shojo Virgin Masturbator unless you want to feel like you need six showers.
> 
> That is all.
> 
> (Un-Beta'd, please forgive me)

For the day shift, Natasha usually opened up shop at 11am, arriving sometime around 10:30 insolong as nothing disastrous happened that morning. Disastrous events were varied in severity but could include: car accident, earthquake, various apocalypse conditions, terrible traffic (due to the aforementioned conditions), phone alarm failure, spontaneous anal prolapse, losing track of time while playing Portal, and Clint’s desire to get in a quickie on her way out the door. Since only three of those ever happened with any regularity and kept her from ever being direly late, she considered herself lucky. It was rare that anyone had a Porn Emergency before noon anyway; occasionally Nat did find herself being met at the door by some grouchy trucker who wanted his pocket pussy like half an hour ago before he hits the road for the duration. It was only ever old men who seemed to want to shop for their wares at what was considered the asscrack of dawn for an adult novelty store.

When she arrived at the storefront, Nat was much maligned to find a beater car sitting in a spot near the exit, some shitty little burner car with a slick silver paint job. It looked like the kind of car driven by some twenty year old asshat in a backwards cap who would try to race you at a red light in broad daylight near a residential area. That kid. Natasha rolled her eyes, fishing out the keys from her jacket pocket and shivering – it certainly wasn’t warm enough to warrant milling around out front any longer than she absolutely had to. Still, that car was a slight red flag – the early bird pervs were usually in older model pick-up trucks or Sedans, one had even parked his semi across about nine spaces one morning before he bought about a hundred dollars worth of interracial gay porn and 64 ounces of Gun Oil anal lube. This car looked young. Young men were trouble. A group of college-aged guys who were probably not at all in college had tried to rob the store two months before Natasha had been brought on to turn it around, and she’d had to call the cops on a group of actual frat boys when they got rowdy and belligerent and refused to leave purely on obstinacy. Natasha hadn’t wanted to admit it but she’d been afraid of them; she knew she was physically capable of taking care of herself in most situations but six on one in a building with few exits was not ‘most situations’. Clint bought her a handgun and started giving her lessons the next day. Tony prosecuted every last one of them to the fullest extent of the law, which wasn’t much but enough to get them in hot water with their school. He installed the cop-call switch under the counter shortly thereafter, but Clint’s counter argument was right – it wouldn’t be enough if shit got really, truly ugly. 

Still, Nat didn’t like the goddamn thing. She carried knives as habit – living in the city had built that much into her – but the gun scared her. Even after her time with Clint at the range, even after watching him calmly take apart and put back together every single weapon in his arsenal (“What in the fuck do you need a bow and arrow for, Clint? Are you worried you’re going to the fucking Hunger Games anytime soon?”), the fear didn’t abate. They seemed so…permanent. Cowardly. Pull your finger forward and someone is dead. It stayed in a nondescript gray bag at the very bottom rung of the shelves under the register, a grim token of bad possibilities she hoped to never cross paths with. 

Much to her relief, the alarm was beeping accordingly when she pushed the door open and no one was behind her, attempting to corral her into the store to give up the register. She quickly latched it behind herself, paranoid habit, and moved to punch in the numbers that made the entire place go eerily quiet again. With everything off, it almost passed as a normal store – no neon lights, the leopard carpet barely visible – if not for the very particular smell that porn dvd’s carried, like old cured plastic. Tony invested in some very nice sprays and candles to help combat it until they could get a better ventilation system into the store; Nat decided to worry about that closer to opening in lieu of going behind the counter to watch the monitors for the security cameras pointed about the parking lot. 

It was impossible to tell if anyone was even in the car – the angle it was parked at made it impossible for the grainy footage to give her anything solid one way or another. Maybe it had been some douchebag who left his car there overnight to go get wasted with a friend and he’d come dragging up for it any minute now. Maybe it really was an irritated early bird perv, showing up just to wait another twenty minutes until she was ready to open up and await the new girl’s arrival. Maybe it was the frat squad, seeking vengeance. Fuck, maybe it was one of Tony’s ugly but impressive new cars. Natasha frowned, worrying her lower lip between her teeth without realizing it. She really didn’t wanna have to call the cops, but she really didn’t wanna get robbed or murdered, either. 

Fortunately, the passenger door opened slowly and out stepped a young woman, her long dark hair and fair skin even more starkly set in the gritty black and white footage. She pulled a jacket over one arm and nodded as she turned back to the car, clearly speaking to someone in the driver’s seat. New girl was almost half an hour early. 

Relieved, Natasha reached over to the wall and hit the switches that turned on the lights, the neon lighting up slowly after the rest of the inlaid bulbs, a much more pleasant, clean glow than the evil fluorescents of yore. Through the glass door she could see New Girl – Wanda – approaching, all burgundy skinny jeans and a black, long-sleeved sweater with thumb holes, already a girl after Natasha’s own sartorial heart. Her hair was so long it was nearly at her tiny waist, pulled back behind the ears, a deep shade of plummy red and brown. Natasha moved to meet her at the door, snapping the lock back so she could push it in and stepping back with a small smile. 

“Hi, you must be Wanda,” she greeted as soon as the girl’s combat boots crossed the threshold, “I’m Natasha.”

“Natasha,” Wanda repeated, looking over at her with almost cartoonishly big eyes rimmed in black kohl, her face somewhere between a manga character and a skull between said eyes and her tiny nose. 

Nat caught just the hint of a Eastern European accent, filing the info away for later conversation fodder if they hit a lull. She wasn’t a chatty trainer most of the time but it was always horribly uncomfortable to train someone with whom she had absolutely nothing but dildos to talk about. Wanda glanced around, clearly looking for a place to put her leather jacket and purse; Nat pointed to the shelves behind the register where her own sat and took the opportunity to keep making her internal assessments. 

She’s thin, bordering on waifish, and a few inches shorter than Natasha herself. She’s got a silver ring on damn near every finger, more than one on a few, and her nails are chipped with some dark red polish – OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark, Natasha could spot that one from three miles away given that she’s gone through two bottles in as many years. Wanda stood up straight and tugs at the hem of her sweater, clearly a little uncomfortable as she darted her eyes from Natasha’s face across the store. Nat considered that they might actually be soulmates. She wants to be best friends, immediately. “Rebel Girl” starts playing in her head. 

“We need to get your paperwork finished, so we’ll pop into the office and print it all out,” Natasha explained, walking her from one side of the store to the other to stop at the door to Tony’s office and then gesturing broadly across her kingdom of iniquity, “Then I’ll give you the whole tour, okay? We’re gonna work on learning the products for most of today, hope you’re comfortable with talking about sex toys.” 

Wanda didn’t say anything back, just nodded, eyes still wide and her mouth still tight. Natasha can’t tell if she’s nervous or if that’s just her face. 

“C’mon, let’s get you registered on the timeclock first,” Nat pushed the door open and held it for Wanda, who muttered a ‘thank you’ and slinks in. 

***  
The reception was as follows:

The tamer things, like pocket rocket vibes and basic clit stimulators, got almost no reaction whatsoever. Wanda handled the packages like they were nothing more than bagged popcorn at a movie theater, just another obvious part of the job. This gave Natasha a little hope that she had the bare bones necessary to make it through what was sometimes an incredibly jarring process for a newbie. Even the most seasoned veteran of internet porn and weird sex toys usually found at least one thing in the store that was able to raise their eyebrows, so a complete disaffect towards everything would be false as well, a calculated effort to seem unphased by anything giving away the fact that one was clearly phased by everything. The trademarked 50 Shades of Gray toys – blindfolds, shitty whips, ugly cuffs and shitty Ben-Wa Ball knockoffs – got a minor glare of disgust, which made Natasha smirk to herself. She’d begged Tony to skip out on the 50 Shades Flood but she couldn’t argue with his points, primarily that it had increased patronage considerably purely on the strength of middle-aged soccer moms who were now coming in, hoping to recreate their very own Ana/Christian experience. 

She agreed, but only on the agreement that any woman who came in to buy would be offered some literature on actual BDSM, a pamphlet about abuse and manipulation and a card for the website to the local dungeon, who were now doing workshops to try to undo at least a little of the bad press. Tony conceded, knowing full well how Nat prided herself on making women comfortable; anybody else might come off as preachy or threatening, scaring off the new clientele, but he trusted his salty redhead to the ends of the earth as well as the cash register. 

Equally comforting: moving into butt stuff did in fact raise Wanda’s immaculate, thin brows a couple of times. Anal was old hat by now to Natasha – and most anybody else who worked even vaguely adjacent to the sex industry – but it was still the big taboo of the vanilla world. Natasha often contemplated the days when letting a boyfriend put a pinky in her ass while he was eating her out seemed so risqué, so dangerously slutty. Now she was handing a girl she barely knew an assortment of butt plugs (one shaped like Jesus, it was the dealbreaker) and strings of anal beads. Wanda couldn’t blink off her reaction to Butt Plug Jesus, taking a moment to hold it up and stare at it with those feline-wide eyes as though she was torn somewhere between sacrilegious amusement and all out revulsion. To her credit, she sat it back on the counter and turned to Nat with something in her eyes that suggested she might have actually laughed had she been more comfortable. It was encouraging. 

Of course, Natasha took her through the porn DVD’s with the utmost care, explaining that a lot of porn was horribly exploitative as well as racist and transphobic and that even though she and Tony had committed to trimming down their wares to independent companies with good reputations for treating their performers well (as well as avoiding such utterly disgusting things like dvd’s of white men fucking tiny Asian women and calling it “Invading Asia”; “Would you like a little imperialism with your orgasm, Tony? How about some white colonialism too?” “Point taken, Romanov. Take it off the sheet.”). Discomfort with porn was totally normal and if it became an issue, she was encouraged to bring it up with Tony or Nat without worrying for her job. As previously mentioned, Tony only continued to carry it for those who refused to catch up with the internet age as RedTube and YouPorn had practically driven the dvd sales to virtually nil with the below-fifty set; it wasn’t going to worry him when the day came to phase it out completely. Though she kept her standard expression – somewhere between mildly curious and mildly scornful – Wanda nodded and responded, leaving the porn discussion where it lay to move on to the good stuff. 

UR3 cocks, so realistic they looked freshly severed from a human body. Hideously un-human like disembodied faces with fuckable throats. That goddamn Twerking Party Ass monstrosity she wants to light on fire. An inflatable sheep with ribbed “holes.” Pig-nosed gimp mask. Japanese masturbators with labels like “Succulent Anus Orifice”. 

“So one time,” Natasha began, keeping a straight face as she was trying not to give too much away on the first day, stocking glass butt plugs with a built-in viewing window on a low shelf , “Tony orders these new masturbators from Japan that are just flying off the shelves overseas. Now, as a warning, any toy that comes from Japan? About an eight out of ten chance that it’s going to be really fucked up. Like seriously disturbing.”

“Why Japan?” Wanda asked, cutting her eyes over from where she was still handling a dildo with a chin strap like it might explode in her hands.

Natasha snorted, “No idea but they’re on a narrow margin ahead of the Germans in terms of straight up sexual weirdness. So anyways” – she picks up a UR3 cock she’s named Phillipe to gesture with – “Tony orders these Shojo Masturbators. It’s got the usual packaging, all the manga girls on the front in little schoolgirl outfits, and some broken English of ‘just like first time!’ on the front, so I figure it’s gonna be, like, ultra tight. That’s a big draw. So I get one out to poke around with it – you’ll learn really quickly that we test everything we buy before we start recommending it to anyone.” 

Wanda arched an eyebrow hard at the dildo in her hands, turning to look at Natasha with faintly registered horror in her eyes. 

Natasha stared back for a moment before she realized the implication, mouth popping into a perfect ‘o’ as she shook her head, eyes widened, “Oh NO, no no no, I don’t mean like that. Well, kind of. You can buy them at a discount, sometimes even get them for free but those are for you to keep, y’know, just so it’s easier to speak from experience when you’re pitching a toy. Oh my god, no.” 

Finally, it happened – Wanda cracked a smile, endearingly crooked, and sighed a sigh of relief that mingled with a nervous laugh, “Oh thank god, I was so scared for a moment…”

“No, oh my god,” Natasha laughed back, shaking her head, errant hair falling out of its already messy formation, “Now, do keep in mind that these get touched. A lot. We take them out of the plastic to show them to people who are interested, and we have testers up front for the luxury wands. Those testers aren’t for sale, but make sure you always advise that they wash any toy they buy before use.”

Wanda nodded, stuffing the dildo back into its plastic coffin, “I will, yes. You were saying?”

“Oh, right,” Nat piped back up, “The Japanese toy. So, we’re fucking around with one up front, I’m feeling of the plastic and it seems pretty normal, nice consistency and there’s light ribbing inside that actually does feel like a vagina. So, Tony and I are shooting the shit about his night out or something and suddenly, I feel something wet on my hand.”

Curious Revulsion, Fragrance by Wanda. She shook her head but she was clearly hooked. 

Nat grinned an awful, horrified grin and nodded, “Oh, oh yes… it’s red. It’s bright fucking red. Like blood. It’s bleeding.” 

Wanda’s mouth fell open and she shook her head, “Nooo… but why? It is, what? Strawberry syrup or something?” 

“Nope,” Nat responded matter-of-factly, shelving her last box, “Blood. ‘Shojo’? Means ‘virgin’ in Japanese. It was simulating virginal vag bleeding. I think it was like dyed wet corn starch or something.” 

“Holy shit,” Wanda gasped, covering her eyes for a moment as if to hide from this awful new knowledge, “That is… that is fucked. Bleeding fuck toy.” 

“Yep,” Natasha popped the ‘p’, standing to wipe the lint off her pants, “I told Tony to take that one out back and burn it and send the others back to Japan. To his credit, he was as horrified as I was.” 

“Tony seems like a nice man,” Wanda added almost as if an afterthought, fingers grazing along the glass of the counter as they made their way back to the front of the blessedly empty store, “He even gives that… what did you call it? Trial funds?” 

“Yep,the good ol’ trial fund,” Natasha leaned against the counter, watching Wanda as she peered at the luxury wands, which Nat had noticed caught the other girl’s attention more so than anything else in the store, “The expensive items, like the Lelo’s, you still pay a percentage and you can’t get more than one of each model, but it’s a good system. I like being able to tell people for sure how something works, y’know?”

Wanda nodded but didn’t respond, clearly not knowing. Nat smirked a little to herself, figuring now was the time to test the waters on how comfortable New Girl Wanda was going to be with how personal this job often got. 

“Do you own any toys?” 

Wanda didn’t respond for a moment, as if the question didn’t sink in until she took her eyes off the case and looked back at her new boss like a deer in the headlights, “Toys? Oh, no, no. Nothing like any of these.” 

“Well, we all start somewhere,” Natasha responded glibly, going to sit in the massage chair and discovering, painfully, that someone left the rotors in mid-lower back rub – definitely unpleasant at plop-down speeds, “Ow, fuck. I mean, I had a few of the shitty little wands you get at like, Spencer’s at the Mall or something. Now I’m a full on connoisseur.” 

Her burgundy lips silently traced over the last word, taking a moment to catch herself up to the conversation. Natasha noticed. So English wasn’t Wanda’s first language, after all. 

“No, I don’t think I ever owned anything,” she shrugged her bird-like shoulders, starting to flip through the catalog of products idly, “I don’t know if I will buy. Might just take your word for what’s good.”

“Your call. But trust me, nobody’s judging here. It’ll be less scary when you’ve been here a while and you’re comfortable with everybody.”

Maybe it was the good faith assumption that she’d be sticking around but whatever the case, this seemed to illicit a real smile from Wanda. Progress. 

“Yes, well…” Wanda hesitated, as if dancing around the next sentence, “My boyfriend will be encouraging, no doubt.” 

The little curl of a smile told Natasha a lot about this boyfriend. The term was relatively new, the relationship probably was as well, and she was half struck with curiosity and half on automatic guard. The men in her female friends’ lives were rarely ever up to the standards she set for what they deserved. She might have just met Wanda but this standard applied to all women, from Maria (blessedly disinterested in men) to whatever woman happened to be strolling in to the store that day. “Ladies looking out for ladies, 2015,” as she had once put on her Facebook wall. 

“I bet he will,” Natasha responded in kind with a smile of her own, “They usually do. God knows mine does.” 

Wanda glanced back at Nat, the eye contact brief and falling quickly into another awkward smile as she cut her eyes back to the catalogue. 

It was a lot of progress for one day. She’d save The Destroyer for tomorrow. 

***

Half of what had gotten Natasha through the early part of a desolate work week was the new toy. The other half was knowing that come Wednesday night Maria would be face-deep in her pussy and she’d get at least an hour of not actively fretting about anything. Clint was good for a quickie between shifts and a nice, lengthy roll in the hay when they could work it in but his oscillating schedule meant that was occurring less and less – another thing she spent too much time fretting about. 

Sometimes there was build up, seduction, all that jazz, but Maria Hill is a get-to-the-point kind of girl. She literally schedules their play-dates into her daily planner. Running a Planned Parenthood clinic meant all I’s dotted and T’s crossed with zero room for deviation or error (“Y’know, I’d say at least my sex life isn’t under federal scrutiny but hey, I’m a lesbian, so that’s not exactly true either, is it?”). Sometimes Nat arrived, made it three feet in the door before they were both getting naked, discussing their work week while Maria got out the lube and preferred toy of the evening, more of a dessert to the main course of oral sex. 

Natasha loved head. Giving, receiving, pussies, dicks, whatever. For her, it was surrender, a service performed as an act of temporary submission regardless of whatever end of the practice she was on at the time. For Maria, it was control, a way to bring her partner to orgasm on her terms, by her actions, at her pace and with her agenda in mind. She didn’t have the inclination or patience to become an actual Dom, no matter how many times Natasha had insisted she was practically born to do it and could make a killing on her own, but submissive partners were by and large her forte. Fortunately for her, Natasha could make the switch in an instant and in fact preferred being bossed around in bed. 

Natasha was in the door all of five minutes before Maria was already on her, hand in her unzipped skinnies to stroke the slick of her pussy up and over her clit, ghosting the delicate piercing in Nat’s (very small) hood. It required an artist’s care to keep from hurting her with it, and Maria was always quietly smug with how well she rose to the occasion. 

It was a quick trip to the bedroom and then Maria was on her knees, mouth locked against Natasha’s cunt, tongue providing just the right soft, steady friction on that almost too-sensitive spot (lack of hood – great for easy stimulation, awful for continued or heavy stimulation) as her fingers dug gently into the plush pale of those soft thighs. This was par for the course of exactly what they both liked – Maria wanted a tongue on her clit and two fingers inside her, curling up at her g-spot in precise, steady rhythm while Natasha liked no-hands, all mouth, fully involved. It was a bragging point of Maria’s that even on that first night when she was equal parts terrified and overcome with arousal, she never flinched away from being thorough, deep in favor of porno-style butterfly flicks (“Eating pussy like they’re on fear factor,” as Tony often said of female porn stars). Truly, Maria was far more Dani Daniels than Jenna Jameson anyway, all raw desire and precise, smart actions. She worshipped Natasha’s cunt with her mouth until the (Ralph Lauren) towel beneath her was soaked and Nat’s legs were shaking, one orgasm more than enough to put her down for the time being. 

Six minutes of being soundly rogered with six inches of pretty purple plastic later, Natasha was on her back again for the sake of recovery of her lower faculties while Maria rode her mouth, perfectly trimmed-but-present pubic hair brushing against her nose, fingers curled up to military precision until she’s coming with a slap of her palm against the wall and a groan rough as sandpaper. 

The afterglow is always good. Maria keeps the best finger foods around. Pun unintended. 

Eating off a wooden plate (Ikea? Williams Sonoma? Natasha has no idea), Nat stuffs a few red grapes in her mouth and finishes off the last of the brie cheese, legs pulled up into the chair with her as they sit in Maria’s cozy-but-functional living room. 

“But you think she’ll work out?” Maria asks, swishing the pink whatever-the-fuck it is that they’re drinking in her glass and craning her head in that way that makes her look extra avian, "You said you thought she might be a little stuffy.”

Natasha makes a noise of acknowledgment through her full mouth, nodding and swallowing in tandem as she reaches for her own wine glass, “I think she will. Maybe stuffy’s not the right word… repressed, maybe?”

“Hm, repressed,” Maria echoes, pausing for thought, “She religious, you think? You said she was foreign.”

“She might be as American as I am, I don’t know,” Nat concedes with a shrug, “She’s just got an accent. And the Jesus butt plug didn’t send her into hysterical screaming or praying so I’m gonna err on the side of no.” 

“It’s pretty fitting considering how many Christians have Christ up their ass,” Maria deadpans, taking another little sip, “Now it’s a literal possibility.” 

Nat snorts but shakes her head, eye roll close behind. Maria’s one of the more judgmental people she knows and though she loves her dearly, there are times when it grates her nerves. Luckily she’s all fucked out tonight and pleasantly full on expensive cheese, so there’s not much else to say. 

“So…” Maria begins the lead in the way she always does when she’s got a wildly inappropriate question, “…do you wanna fuck her?”

Nat groans like she just sprung a pop quiz on her.

“Fucking relax, it’s an honest question,” Maria defends coolly, curling up in her chair beneath the heinous blue snuggie Nat bought her for her birthday, “I’m just asking. You know it’s not a jealousy thing.”

Though jealousy may be in the nature of someone as capricious as Maria can be, Natasha knows she’s telling the truth. Neither of them believes in monogamy, and even if they did, they’re not in love. 

“You know I don’t shit where I eat,” Natasha responds, wiping her hands on her napkin.

Maria points at her with the hand holding the glass, “But that’s not a ‘no’.” 

Nat pauses to consider. Even she’s not a hundred percent sure, and her answer isn’t even the least bit pre-thought out, a revelation to the both of them. 

“If I met her somewhere else? I’d try to. I mean, she’s a little schoolgirl-ish. She’s got a boyfriend she’s clearly newly nuts about and I’m pretty sure she’s straight but I wouldn’t say no if she wanted to experiment, y’know?”

Maria’s smirk penetrates the veil of pleasant post-orgasm haze and irritates Natasha. Time to go home. 

***

When she gets home, Clint is asleep on the couch with a half-eaten pizza resting in its box on his stomach, one arm slung over his eyes while Spike TV plays some god-awful reality show about chainsaw carving in the background. The tug of warmth in her chest is there, it’s there every single time she sees him again after not seeing him for a little while, but there’s something else there too. 

Sadness. Loneliness. 

She misses him, and he’s right here.


	3. Rubbing One Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Natasha remembers the first night she met Clint..._
> 
> _She didn’t get a good look at him until they got to the bar, noticing a blonde guy in a leather jacket bellying up beside Barney and there it was: a resemblance both striking and jarring, a common thread that made them clearly brothers but yet something so different in the way Clint carried himself that it was blatantly obvious that they were very, very different. He glanced up and those gray-blue eyes caught hers and the jolt that hit her spine went straight between her legs. She’d never had chemistry with anyone else like that before, something so sudden and alive and of its own volition that she felt like she was just helplessly hanging on for the ride from the moment he sat beside her and said hello til hours later when he was in her apartment and inside her (best het sex she ever had that didn’t involve party drugs)._
> 
> _She watched him the next morning as he took out his hearing aids to shower and then put them back in nonchalantly, like there was nothing at all to it. She hadn’t even realized he was deaf._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay (which is more or less how I begin every chapter of everything). The holidays, death in the family, managing to successfully blow a tire - this month has sucked. But it's over, so there's that. 
> 
> Thank you again for all the wonderful feedback and patience I've received from all of you who have commented. I don't plan to update this story with the same fast pace that I tried to keep with Church Bells, namely because inspiration comes a little slower on this particular fic, but I won't be abandoning it either, promise. And there will be more one-shots coming down the way soon. 
> 
> You are all wonderful, lovely creatures. Keep the weird sex toys coming.

Natasha remembers the first night she met Clint.

 

She’d known Barney for a few months by that point, only ever seeing him at parties of mutual friends and the occasional bar that seemed to hold the same orbit of mutuals. There was Bruce, the scientist student going for his Master’s in nuclear something-or-the-other at the time, recent addition to Natasha’s sexy time roster. Then there was Nick, who had been her direct superior at the insurance agency and despite his somewhat intimidating demeanor in the cubicles (and she’s unsure how much of that was actual effort at being intimidating and how much of it was pre-conceived notion given that he was literally one of three black people in that entire department) – he quit coming out when his multiple eye surgeries prevented him from drinking with any regularity, but she still talked to him frequently, mostly by text or Facebook messenger. Maria, of course, only went out every other blue moon but did sometimes join. Coincidentally, her first knowledge of the sex shop came from a couple-week stint of then-manager Whitney hanging out with Barney before their sexual chemistry died off and they went right back to being completely disinterested in one another. Barney was charismatic as hell, all roguishly handsome and scarred face that he never told the truth about; he was a liar, and a good one at that. He was always talking about his baby brother Clint and how funny and smart he was and how he’d carved him into the badass he was today. Natasha thought he was full of shit.

 

She didn’t get a good look at him until they got to the bar, noticing a blonde guy in a leather jacket bellying up beside Barney and there it was: a resemblance both striking and jarring, a common thread that made them clearly brothers but yet something so different in the way Clint carried himself that it was blatantly obvious that they were very, very different. He glanced up and those gray-blue eyes caught hers and the jolt that hit her spine went straight between her legs. She’d never had chemistry with anyone else like that before, something so sudden and alive and of its own volition that she felt like she was just helplessly hanging on for the ride from the moment he sat beside her and said hello til hours later when he was in her apartment and inside her (best het sex she ever had that didn’t involve party drugs).

 

She watched him the next morning as he took out his hearing aids to shower and then put them back in nonchalantly, like there was nothing at all to it. She hadn’t even realized he was deaf.

 

They liked being near one another so much that the first night turned straight into brunch the next morning and an entire afternoon of sex after that. She learned so much about him, so quickly – he was former military, had spent a tour in Afghanistan and picked up some very valuable skills that made him a good candidate for bodyguard-ing and security work, he regarded that decision as a mistake and got out of the military as quickly as he could. He wasn’t judgmental – if anything, there was a marked lack of judgment for others – but he learned quickly what his values were and weren’t in a foreign war he discovered he didn’t even a little bit agree with. Sometimes she could see the clouds inside him whenever he spoke about his brief military career; she knew there were things he held himself accountable for that probably weren’t fair to him. He didn’t self-flagellate – the untrained eye would see him as nonchalant on the subject – but Natasha caught it in her quiet, observant way.

 

Despite this, he was probably the most positive person she’d ever met: true, genuine optimism as opposed to blind faith in everything working out for the best. The more valuable trait. Clint had seen awful things, had probably done awful things, had a rough childhood with a beast of a father and a shitbag brother that loved him as best he could but put him in so many shitty situations with his own poor judgment, and made a career out of being ready to be physically violent at any moment, and yet he looked for the good in everything and everyone. Clint was the first one to jump out of the car when someone else was broken down in the street. Natasha tried to give loose change or whatever crumpled bills were in her pocket to every homeless panhandler she met, but Clint would stop and have a conversation with them, walk to the store with them and buy them cigarettes, give them rides to the shelter or buy them dinner. And it wasn’t an act. Nothing about him was calculated until a gun was in his hand.

 

He was dry, sarcastic and clever and suffered from a pretty extreme case of Grumpy Cat Resting Face but there he was – a man who believed in good things above all else. Clint believed in jumping and letting nets appear. He believed in taking the lemons life gave him and painting that shit gold.

 

 Nat was an old pro at detaching from her feelings, a compartmentalizer of the highest order; she could armchair psych herself for days on end to try to find the exact root of the behavior but it did not a damn thing to change the way she felt. Lovers were always more like friends with benefits, and more than one arrangement had come to a screeching halt when the other party caught feelings that Natasha didn’t reciprocate. She had entertained the notion that she was completely aromantic for a while – Maria certainly didn’t shy from the label – but she wasn’t sure it was truly applicable. Meeting Clint had sparked up an intense affection that she couldn’t quite pin down without dredging up some pretty massive discomfort that she wasn’t particularly interested in facing head-on; they had moved in together as close friends who were sort-of dating, cohabitating without so much as an “I love you” or any sort of solid walls of a traditional relationship.

 

Nat had been up front that she wasn’t about to stop sleeping with other people. He told her he had no intention of stopping, either. The relief was fantastic. Coincidentally, they met Phil the next weekend and started their occasional threesome routine.

 

The last three months had been an increasingly frustrating slog through increasingly foreign territory. Clint took an armed detail job and started keeping weird, inconsistent hours, which wasn’t his favorite by a long shot but the money was so good that he wasn’t inclined to say no. Natasha had enjoyed the break on rent and utilities but had to adjust to having another person in the apartment, including learning that there would be times where she’d be talking to him from another room only to come in and find him completely unaware, hearing aids out to be cleaned or just for comfort’s sakes. Sometimes she wanted to be alone and there was someone else in her apartment. Sometimes she just wanted to see Clint, talk to him, lay on him and smell his neck and he wasn’t there. It was a weird thing to get used to.

 

***

 

By Wanda’s fourth day of training, she was beginning to develop a comfort level with the environment that Natasha always took as a good sign in a new hire. Some people never found a fully formed way to have a conversation about anal sex with a total stranger, which she supposed was okay in the real world – what an interesting litmus it was that she had developed via this job – but didn’t bode well for one’s future in the adult retail career path. She didn’t handle the toys with the same morbid curiosity or squeamish hesitance that she had on the first few days – also normal – and her big area of needed improvement, customer interaction, was coming along nicely. It wasn’t that Wanda couldn’t talk to customers per se; it was that she didn’t like it. Having done management in retail, she had always opted for doing scheduling and floor coordination over staying up front, far more content in the back and unboxing overpriced tank tops from some Pinterest knockoff label than pushing credit card sales. Still, she seemed to be approaching the inevitability of her need to talk up everyone who walked through the door with resigned dignity, some fallen princess walking to the gallows with her head held high. Natasha thought it was cute.

 

It took as many days for the subject of Pietro to finally come up.

 

Wanda was fifteen minutes late when she came blustering through the door in a huff of lost breath and irritation, her jacket slung over her skinny arm. She didn’t slow down when she passed the front counter where Natasha was putting clearance stickers on a stack of DVD’s, eyebrow raised as the young woman blurred by.

 

“I’m sorry!” Wanda called over her shoulder as she darted into Tony’s open office, the mechanical chirp of the timeclock program on his computer sounding out, “My brother’s stupid car would not start, I tried to call but I don’t have any signal on our side of town, it won’t happen again.”

 

Her voice became clearer as she walked back out, raking fingers through her long, damp hair and looking as frustrated as her delicate little features could allow (which was actually impressively so), her crimson mouth a perfectly downturned U. Her accent seemed much more pronounced. Natasha couldn’t help but smirk a little at the concern. Sometimes Whitney didn’t bother to show up at all and she didn’t show an ounce of remorse for having inconvenienced whoever she was supposed to be relieving – Tony had stopped putting Whitney on nights, cut her hours and made sure she had few conjoining shifts with Natasha’s since he knew damn well that Nat wasn’t going to tolerate her shit period, much less diplomatically. Maybe one day he’d fire her already. It was refreshing to have a coworker who actually gave a shit.

 

“Relax, boo,” Natasha responded calmly, sticker-gunning another orange label onto Pussy Playhouse #4, “It’s fifteen minutes. I don’t start worrying until half an hour passes.”

 

“Is not like me, I swear it,” Wanda came over, plopping her knock-off Coach bag under the counter and picking up a roll of Windex wipes, “I’m a reliable worker, my brother is usually reliable driver, but this piece of shit car he has is going to be the death of us both.”

 

Natasha had figured the guy in the silver car was her boyfriend, not her brother, but it made sense that someone who had immigrated over would come with a trusted relative. Nat had always been the smallest bit jealous of people with siblings – she was an only child, only parent deceased, pretty distant from the rest of her extended family and otherwise disinterested in familial bonds, period, but it might have been nice to have a partner in crime. A brother. A sister. Someone who could corroborate the past see things the same way she had. Maybe she’d have felt less alone growing up. No matter.

 

“So that’s your brother, huh?” Nat stickered OMG My Mom’s A Whore and straightened the stack, picking them up to take back to the racks, “Older or younger?”

 

“Younger by twelve minutes.”

 

The tone of Wanda’s voice had changed, the irritation dying out into something softer, and she glanced up to watch the brunette rub the smudges off the glass case of the front counter. Indeed her countenance had softened as well. Natasha smiled a little to herself.

 

“Yikes, twins, huh? I bet you two were trouble growing up.”

 

Wanda broke into a reluctant grin but just as quick as it had come it began to fade into something sad, a haunting around the eyes that had a depth that Natasha knew she had no business investigating, however curious she might have been. Quick to change the subject, Natasha reached for the question at the forefront of her mind as tactfully as possible, what she’d pondered since Wanda had admitted to being in a relationship earlier that week.

 

“I guess I just figured he was your boyfriend,” she offered casually, putting the dvd’s on the clearance shelf as if to underscore how nonchalant the statement was meant to be.

 

Wanda stood up quickly, tossing the used wipe into the trash and replacing the can as she tucked her hair behind her ears, almost purposefully avoiding eye contact, “Uhm… no. My boyfriend is, ah… I don’t know how best to describe it. I guess ‘boyfriend’ is the best word but I am not sure.”

 

Discomfort with the subject, hesitance to pick a label – Natasha may as well have been looking into a mirror at that moment. One of those funhouse mirrors that makes you look really, really skinny, but a mirror nonetheless. Needing nothing else said to know it was time to stop, Natasha just nodded and continued stacking the rest of the dvd’s.

 

Much to her surprise, Wanda cleared her throat and started to shakily find her conversational legs about the topic. Apparently, she’d really wanted to talk about it, just not knowing how.

 

“I mean… it’s, uh, not conventional. But we have a relationship. It’s…”

 

Nat glanced up at her, watching as Wanda’s ever-expressive face teetered somewhere between confused bashfulness and the barest hint of a smile. So, not only was she taken, she was in love. Perhaps Natasha’s fantasy of being Wanda’s bi-curiosity jungle gym would just have to remain a lovely dream.

 

“I get it,” Nat blurted back, maybe with a little less suavity than she had been aiming for but knowing that between her usual monotone and even-keeled expression, it was hard to make herself look like a spaz anyway, “I mean, I’m in something similar. I live with him, we’re sort of together but it’s not, like… it’s just hard to explain.”

 

Wanda’s look brightened just a little as she nodded quickly, relieved to not have to struggle to explain herself, “Yes, yes, that’s exactly it. It’s like… I am not sure if there are words for it. It just is.”

 

She’d unintentionally said a mouthful there. Natasha sighed, nodding as well, glad to know that they’d, at least been able to make this connection across the gaps.

 

“So does your brother like him? Your boyfriend, I mean.”

 

Natasha stood up just as the door chimed, a gaggle of middle aged women coming through with wide eyes and nervous laughs, huddling close together like they feared forcible separation and exposure to mustachio’d men in leather hats. Nat stood up straight, abandoning the line of questioning and nodding over at Wanda with a look in her eyes that said “you’re up.”

 

_Fifty Shades crowd, four o’clock. Good luck._

 

Wanda hesitated only a second before smoothing back her hair and putting on a smile that didn’t actually seem all that forced, “Hello, ladies! Welcome to Salacious, is there anything I can help you find?”

 

***

 

When Nat arrived home – late, as usual – she knew Clint was already there. His bike was parked in the street for one thing, but as he sometimes liked to do, he had left her a can of Dr. Brown’s root beer – her favorite – sitting on the table in the doorway that was usually littered with unopened mail and Walgreens bags. Nat smiled and tossed her bag down on the floor by his shoes, unbothered with actually hanging the damn thing somewhere. Purse hooks on the agenda next Ikea trip, maybe? Time to get back on that whole adult-apartment thing, she chastised herself quietly before choosing to leave it alone and walk into the bedroom.

 

“Clint?”

 

There was no blonde guy laying on her bed or the sound of water running in the shower, and she knew if he had his hearing aids out, he’d never hear her anyway, although Clint professed to being able to tell she was home by vibrations on the wooden floors if he was laying on them (“Like Beethoven”). The one large window in the bedroom was slightly ajar, letting in a chilly breeze that blew the curtain – window dressing, another set of adult things she didn’t have the whole way through the house – askew. Nat opted to keep her boots on and pushed the window the rest of the way open to find Clint sitting on the fire escape, knees drawn up to rest his elbows on them, beer in one hand.

 

Deaf though he was, it was hard to get a jump on Clint in any scenario, always hypervigilant to the point where it almost annoyed Natasha at times. Sometimes he’d hear something in the night, sitting up straight in bed and peering into the dark with those clear gray-blue eyes with a laser, hawk-like focus. If his aids weren’t in he was twice as diligent, sometimes barely sleeping through the night – it had been a rough adjustment until he finally learned to sleep on his back so the plastic in his ears didn’t bother him as much. His cool but pleasant demeanor meant a lot of people never even guessed at what might have been wrong, any internal plight on his part hidden behind wry humor and an easygoing nature. Wanda’s eyes looked a lot like Clint’s, come to think of it – darkened with shadows that didn’t have names, creasing before their time. The ol’ “Wise Beyond Their Years” chestnut. Natasha felt that way, too, like she’d been forty since she was twelve, and yet managed to simultaneously feel like she was failing at being nearly-thirty. It was an odd concept.

 

The beer in his hand told Natasha it’d been a rough day before he ever cut his eyes up at her, but when he did, she could see in very precise terms just how tired he was. They hadn’t seen one another in almost three days by this point, Clint taking a security detail for some political figure who would need extra hands on deck for a slog through voter areas that statistically didn’t care for his kind. The money was good but he was essentially treated like a hired monkey, a useful tool if the shit hit the fan but otherwise unworthy of basic human respect. He galvanized the other security officers well enough, made a few friends, but the strain of remembering his time in the desert atop the knowledge that this particular politician had been one of the ones that gave the orders that put him there had made for some spectacular internal tension.

 

Clint was reaching for the aids in his jacket pocket when Natasha took a seat across from him and next to his feet, back to the rail so he could watch her mouth when she spoke. A little smile tugged at the corner of his perpetual French-Bulldog frown and he took a quick swig off the top.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey,” Nat responded, her hoarse voice soft as she laid her hands impotently in her lap, “You hungry?”

 

“Starving,” he answered, and the shadows dissipated just enough that she could see warmth in his eyes when he looked at her, “Pick your poison.”

 

***

They had barely made it back in the door from the local Renna’s Pizza when Clint was wrapping his arms around Natasha’s waist, face against the back of her neck, half an act of instigation and half one of succor on his own part. Nat cut her hair because she liked it shoulder length or shorter – she’d caught a lot of grief from various men in her life about how nobody liked short hair on women, which frankly may have just added fuel to the fire, but Clint seemed to love the easy access to the nape of her neck. What was even better – he never voiced his opinion on her hair one way or another, resolutely aware that his opinion here was inconsequential. He liked having his input valued when it came to what was for dinner, or if they should get another mattress, or if he liked whatever newfangled toy she’d brought home, but Natasha was her own and no one else’s.

 

He loved that.

 

Sometimes Natasha considered that this was just some fleeting thing that was passing through the landscape of her life; a love affair that lacked the romantic panache that all little girls were told to expect upon growing up meant that it wasn’t the magical, once-in-a-lifetime connection that she had once been so sure would be all it would take to knock her off the fence of her romantic indifference. She’d had feelings for plenty of people, sure – a lot of loving, affectionate feelings – and god knows she had sexual attraction in spades. But nothing measured up to what she had pieced together that love probably was. The quiet truth she didn’t admit to any of her friends growing up was that this idea of love seemed not idyllic and apex but kind of…well, horrifying. Suffocating. Natasha didn’t need someone to hold her hand every day, make all her decisions with her as part of a team, or be there at the end of every day. Sometimes she loved being alone in her apartment. She didn’t want Clint to feel like he needed to give her input on every corner of her life. It felt like scrutiny, not partnership, and she had come to accept in the past few years that maybe she just wasn’t cut out for love.

 

But then, what was this? How did she feel electrified down to her toes when he bit the graceful bowing in of her neck and slid his hands under her shirt, callouses over her soft belly? How did just the murmur of his voice against her skin make her feel, quite literally, weak at the knees? She’d had sexual chemistry that was so powerful it couldn’t stop boiling over – see College Boyfriend Matt or Maria – but this was something that defied categorization. It wasn’t better necessarily, just different – comparing the two was like comparing apples and baseball bats. They had virtually nothing to do with each other. It didn’t make her want to choose one over the other, but it did make her want this even more. It made her remember that for every time she thought maybe she shouldn’t get so attached to Clint, that he’d be moving on like the rolling stone he was before long, there was /this/ if she opted to ignore that urge.

 

Their shoes scuffed along the hallway and into the bedroom. Warm, recently worn clothes were strewn across cold, not-so-recently worn clothes – Nat never claimed to be a good housekeeper – and neither of them regarded them with any concern. The bed was unmade, as usual – the one pet peeve of Clint’s – and they crawled into it with the urgency of a retreat from the world at large, both into the soft blankets and each other.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, which was pleasant enough to hear from any other partner but never carried the same weight for Natasha than it did in this bedroom, with this partner, “So fucking beautiful.”

 

Sometimes he would look at her and all Natasha could think about was a dog. She knew that sounded awful in her head but she meant it with the utmost appreciation and adoration; he would give her that profoundly devoted look like he was sure the sun shone out of her ass.

 

The insistent tug at her hips told Natasha to turn over, pull her now bare knees up beneath her so he could eat her from behind the way he preferred to. Nat required clit stimulation to get off – her and most other women, hard from unique in this respect – but so often she found that her male partners just didn’t measure up to Maria in the cunnilingus department. Phil wasn’t bad at all but a little more preoccupied with Clint’s cock than Natasha’s pussy – the thrill of the exotic and all. Bruce certainly knew how to get the job done, a little more precise than she preferred but all it had taken was a few kindly worded suggestions to get him exactly how she wanted him. College Boyfriend Matt had been the best to date until Maria came into the picture, grabbing her ass with both hands and laying into her like he was starving for it.

 

Clint, however, had patience on his side. He had that marksman precision but knew how to work up the metaphorical crowd, knew that a straight arrow into a target got boring after the first few times, so he took his time. Tongue across the bare, soft labia that she kept waxed bare for simplicity’s sake. Calculatedly slow laps at her sensitive clit, teething the ring with absolute gentleness – the opposite a mistake he’d made only once – and probing (there’s got to be a better word for it than ‘probing’, that’s the least sexy word on the planet) tongue slipped into her cunt to taste the sharp difference from inside to outside. Work her up, get her so wet she’s slick and ready, and then move on to her ass to drag it out just a little while longer. Natasha’s not an impatient person by nature but Clint brings it out of her in moans of ragged irritation, muffled by her cheek against the pillow.

 

“Bossy, bossy,” he muttered against the soft skin of her ass, biting slowly but a little hard before he’s back tonguing her asshole, her fists tightening on the sheets.

 

It takes nothing to make her come from here. There’s more teasing, more back and forth, and then he’s back on her clit with a soft but steady tongue and a resolved purpose and she’s jerking beneath where his arm is wrapped up around her hips, thighs shaking, knees giving. Sometimes he tries to keep going, force her through the first orgasm and into a second but so far she’s been unable to replicate that gloriousness with anything but a Lelo wand. Still, it doesn’t stop him from trying, and he only pulls back when she’s clearly shirking away from his mouth to pant into the cotton.

 

Though it took a moment to get her mobility bearings back, Nat had begun to move around to blow him when Clint snaked an arm around her middle and pulled her up onto her knees, his rock-solid cock bobbing against the small of her back as he bit along her shoulder. Grinding against her almost subconsciously, desperate for the friction, Clint took both of her tits in his palms to rub and squeeze until she’s mewling softly, head falling back against his shoulder in a spill of red and flushed skin. This is so, so good, almost vanilla by technical definition, but so, so good.

 

Nat loves being fucked from behind for a number of reasons but not the least of which being that she’s of the sect of women who actually like having their cervix hit. Maria would sooner die, swore up and down it felt like being impaled, but it had never been anything but pleasurable for Natasha. In addition were the benefits of eased pressure where it came to eye contact – general discomfort with intimacy bred a general discomfort with missionary position. Do you look away, or is that insulting? Do you stare directly at them, or is that weird? How about if someone’s breath is weird? All of these precipitating factors bred a love of the less problematic positions even outside of the fact that she just _likes_ it, likes having her hips pulled back, likes controlling the depth and speed this way.

 

Leave it to Clint to make it weirdly intimate, especially tonight.

 

Her back was against his chest, the skin sticking with drying sweat, his arms around her and hands still her tits as his breath came in hot puffs against her neck. Suddenly they were moving slower than before, a sensation like everything was now underwater, being viewed through a distorted lens. Natasha wondered if maybe she was a little drunk – she hadn’t had that many beers and certainly didn’t feel like she was drunk until this moment, but her skin was prickling all over and then he was pulling her up to angle the head of his cock against her and the push in, all the way in, snatched the breath out of her lungs. Clint made a noise so helpless, so vulnerable against her neck that the only way she could think to describe her reaction was _moved_ and the slowest, deepest grind back against him was all that could be done at the moment.

 

One night during her Sophmore year, she and College Boyfriend Matthew Murdock took ecstasy and proceeded to fuck in every conceivable place in his parents’ timeshare condo. On the bed, on the floor, on a towel by the door a la Matt Damon and Sarah Silverman. Up against a fish tank, which was crazy and surreal with all the blue lights and the electric hum of the salt water pump but when it rocked a little too far and nearly spilled over, they took it to the pool out back. It had been transcendental, a union of souls and flesh that sent her spinning into a new set of emotions that she figured had to be this love she had always been so terrified of, a journey down the path of what it meant to be joined sexually and spiritually and all that other drivel that sounded so poetic the night before. However, when she woke up and was equal parts as awkward and mortified about the idea as she had been before he convinced her it was a good idea, she made a mostly inflexible oath to herself about that sort of thing.

 

This was the closest thing that reality had provided to that trip-plus-sexual-encounter. Clint slid one hand up to her throat to close around it gently, not even squeezing, with the other going to her hip to keep her riding him slow and hard, mostly quiet save the odd grunt on an exhale. Clint never was terribly loud until those last few seconds before blast-off and Natasha was mostly rough, jagged moans and exhales, the vibrations of which feeling beautiful against his calloused fingers around her neck. Nat arched her back and pressed hard against him, keeping him buried to the balls for just a few excrutiatingly perfect seconds until she could feel the crest of orgasm no 2 coming down the bay and snatched her hand off his hip to start rubbing her clit as furiously as she could handle.

 

Clint didn’t object to this but squeezed her hip harder and pulled her back at the steady, slow tempo they’d been keeping, his voice hoarse against her ear, “Stay slow… thisisperfect… stay slow…”

 

It took work to avoid the urge to disregard the request, grab the headboard and start slamming back into him with everything she had but the restraint had her trembling, hand working faster, thighs shaking, breath coming in hard pants and ragged sobs of moaning, her mind racing and burning and wondering shouting out into the void of existence with every screaming ounce of consciousness and –

 

Clint forced her hand aside and pressed his own between her legs, fingers flat but firm against her clit and the added pressure as he pulled her back onto the full length of his cock one last time made her come with gunshot intensity, fast and hard and almost jarring, a gush of wet running down both their legs. He cried out and buried his face against the back of her neck, into the damp nest of her hair as she felt his shaft jerking inside of her, familiar sensation of him coming, smug satisfaction atop smug satisfaction except this time the whole thing was blanketed in bewilderment. Neither of them moved for a long moment until the sweat was cooling to the point of discomfort and Clint shifted to pull out of her mindfully, pressing a kiss to the back of her shoulder as he stood with a grunt to hit the bathroom for a quick piss.

 

Natasha felt new and even more naked than the literal sense, a baby bird shoved out of the nest with a rude awakening waiting on the ground below. She shook gently, more of a full body vibrate with hands pressed against her damp sheets, feeling wetness begin to run down the inside of her thigh as a stereo out on the street began to blare Carly Rae Jepsen.

 

_I really, really, really, really, really, really like you._

_Goddammit._

 

 

 


	4. Diddling The Skiddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was a dry patch, for sure. Coulson hadn’t called her or Clint in some time. Bruce was seeing someone, if his Facebook page was any indication. She tried not to be hurt that he hadn’t texted or called to tell her – they were friends first, after all – but she said nothing, figuring when it was important he’d reach out. Any attraction to Wanda had been smashed down in the name of not taking advantage of her newfound comfort level – there was seriously zero indication whatsoever it was returned, anyway – and Maria’s Wednesday night date had been cancelled as the clinic was undergoing some serious drama courtesy of a series of highly doctored videos hitting mass media. Needless to say, it was a boring, boring month so far._
> 
> _And then she walked in._
> 
> Enter Darcy Lewis, stage left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm alive!
> 
> The pace of this story has been slow for a number of reasons, the biggest one being real life, aggravating inconvenience that it is to my writing. But Salacious is a labor of love and not an obligation - it just spun out of an idea that I wanted to have fun with a fic that was a lot less emotionally taxing than Church Bells and that gave me the opportunity to bang it out with the extended Marvel Universe via a character that I think is just tragically underutilized. It was the usual - the holidays, my birthday (which is directly after the holidays), and the fact that my contracted work position is slated to end soon, which has meant a lot of extra work in closing my program and trying to locate a new one. 
> 
> But, part of my self-improvement this year is going to be a significant increase in writing. I love writing. It's what I'd like to do on a permanent basis, and no matter what else I'm doing, I'll be doing it. 
> 
> So, all that overshare to say this - I won't be adopting the regular schedule that Church Bells had but I plan to post more frequently on Salacious. It's looking more and more like this may expand into a multi-story arc that will be part of a series, so please let me know if that's something you're interested in seeing. 
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who reads, leaves kudos or a kind (or not kind, haven't gotten one yet but I take all feedback) message in the comments. You're a wonderful lot and I consider myself lucky you're here (especially you, Kyran). 
> 
> Thanks and enjoy!

Mardi Gras was officially over by the time Tony flew back into upstate, clearly hung over but joyous with two boxed king cakes in his arms as he leaned back against the door and opened it with the trademark chime. Wanda and Natasha both popped up from behind the DONA partition like twin meerkats, re-configuring the wire shelving that housed the BDSM d-ring belts and straps to kill time on what had been an otherwise uneventful day.

“Sup kids,” he called out, gesturing with the boxes as he made his way into his office, “Anybody itching for a sugar rush?”

“Ooo!” Natasha responded, dropping the screwdriver and wire piece to the floor as if she’d forgotten them before her mouth even opened and pulling up her low-riding pants on her way to chase down some of the bounty, leaving Wanda standing there with the sticker gun.

“What is this?” Wanda asked, leaning as if she could curve her vision around the door frame and see what all the fuss was about.

“King cake!” Tony called back, lowering his tone once he noticed Nat was now in his office, digging out paper plates and plastic forks from one of the pull-out drawers beneath the microwave, “Oh jesus, the sound of my own voice is like scraping on a chalkboard.”

Nat smirked and watched him pinch the bridge of his nose, “Looks like you and the lady had a nice time.”

That tugged a smirk from his lips, and Nat noticed his trademark, weirdly specific facial hair seemed less sharp than usual, the hint of a five o’clock shadow creeping in around it and providing some weird shading.

“What is this king cake?” Wanda came in, wide eyes curious as she leaned over the desk to look.

The initial skiddishness of her first two weeks had come to a close very quickly, a good sign for someone’s longevity selling adult novelties. Natasha had watched her anxiety fade to nearly nothing where it came to handling and talking about the products, even saw her begin to ask more prodding questions that she might have shied away from before. There was always a certain kind of girl who came to work at the shop, the one who never had a safe space to talk about literally anything that came to her mind, and Nat always took special pleasure in watching them blossom into the kind of girls who talked about anal at room volume, forgetting much in the way that she did herself that social norms dictated that this place was still taboo. Now, according to Tony, it was like having two overgrown children who knew a lot about things they shouldn’t know and tried to steal whatever food he left in his office.

“King cake,” Tony responded, digging out a bottle of Advil from another drawer, his sunglasses still on, “Is a cultural quirk of the glorious gulf coast around Mardi Gras time. It’s very, very sweet but it’s very, very good.”

“Sweet?” Wanda asked again, practically licking her chops as she watched Nat break the seal on the top box, “I like sweet.”

“Oh, I’m gonna make myself sick again this year,” Nat responded with no small amount of glee, grinning as she took in the sight of the white frosting glittering with purple, green and yellow sugar crystals, “Oh my god, look at that. It’s so beautiful.”

“Why is it cultural?” Wanda asked, furrowing her brow as though that wasn’t quite the way she meant to put the sentiment, “I mean, what about it is cultural?”

“Every year, New Orleans, Louisiana holds Mardi Gras,” Tony reclined in his chair, putting on what Nat called his narrator voice and stretching his arms up behind his head, “Despite the fact that it’s most commonly associated with New Orleans, though, I feel it bears mentioning that it started in Alabama.”

“Mobile,” Natasha offered, having heard this story before, and carved off a piece of flaky pastry cake with a plastic fork to hand off to Tony first, “Thanks, boss.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tony took the plate, tapping his fork against it, “Anyway, it’s largely now associated with New Orleans culture, which is strikingly unique even along the very unique gulf coast. Mardi Gras is always a big deal, more or less a den of total iniquity with lots of drinking, eating sinfully delicious food and seeing lots and lots of breasts.”

Wanda raised her eyebrows, “Wow. This sounds like a big party.”

The skinny girl nearly clapped with glee when Nat handed her a plate of her own, making her smile of her own accord. Wanda’s salty demeanor was half a ferociously bitchy resting face, half a general lack of cheer but seemed to be diminishing greatly along with her nervousness in the workplace. Natasha licked some icing off her thumb and had to forcibly suppress a moan as she started carving off her own piece, naturally bigger than everyone else’s.

“It’s a great place to lose a kidney.”

Wanda didn’t seem to notice, too busy closing her eyes and groaning at the taste before mindfully sucking every last bit of icing off the prongs of the fork as though there wasn’t ¾’s of a large piece still left on her plate.

“Urban legend,” Tony countered, chewing quickly as though his jaw was incapable of any speed but ‘too fast’, “I go every year because there’s a major adult novelty vendor conference there the weekend before Mardi Gras, great excuse to sell sex toys on a totally debaucherous holiday. So it doubles as work-pleasure and I get a vacation in at the same time.”

“Only you think going away for a work conference still counts as a vacation,” Natasha smirked before chomping down some cake gracelessly.

“What can I say? When you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.”

“This is delicious,” Wanda mused, going to cut into her piece with her fork before making a confused face, bearing down a little too hard and nearly flipping the cake off the plate, “Wait, there… what is this?”

Nat craned her neck to peer up at her, frowning until Wanda’s fork exposed plastic pink, the new girl’s expression growing horrified. With a scrape of her fork she moved away the last of the frosting, the plastic pink pseudo-fetus staring back up at her causing her to screech and toss the plate onto the desk. Tony laughed loud enough that it was followed with a groan as he rubbed his temples.

“Oh, right, congratulations. You found the plastic baby.”

***

Clint’s security detail had taken him away again, this time to an arena where Senator Assfuck (as he was being referred to) was giving a speech on whatever the hell it was he was trying to take away from poor people now, so Natasha offered to take one of Whitney’s weeknight shifts in exchange for letting her take Saturday-day. She’d make less money, sure, but this was a quick way to make sure she didn’t spend the entire evening moping around or watching youtube tutorials for four hours. Sure, she might learn how to make a macramé plant holder, but a/ Natasha tried not to bring living things into the house that weren’t people on account of her black thumb of death and general inability to keep a pet and b/ she’d gather the skill, do it for a week and get bored. All Natasha’s ‘hobbies’ that didn’t involve sexual stimulation went much the same. Knitting? Maybe for a month. She was good at it, too, which was the most infuriating part for Maria (“This was supposed to be MY hobby, you were just going to come to the class in case it was stupid!”) when she never managed to pick it up with any relative skill. Painting? Meh. She could do a nice flower in a vase but it was mediocre and expensive as a habit, no passion in it for her. She’d invested in some of those grown-up coloring books full of mandalas and the like, colored maybe four pages in them and then retired them to the basket in the foyer, liking how grown up they looked but having no use for them otherwise. Clint taught her how to use a gun but firing one needlessly seemed dumb, and she liked working out well enough to do it a couple times a month but classes were expensive and youtube videos were free.

It was a dry patch, for sure. Coulson hadn’t called her or Clint in some time. Bruce was seeing someone, if his Facebook page was any indication. She tried not to be hurt that he hadn’t texted or called to tell her – they were friends first, after all – but she said nothing, figuring when it was important he’d reach out. Any attraction to Wanda had been smashed down in the name of not taking advantage of her newfound comfort level – there was seriously zero indication whatsoever it was returned, anyway – and Maria’s Wednesday night date had been cancelled as the clinic was undergoing some serious drama courtesy of a series of highly doctored videos hitting mass media. Needless to say, it was a boring, boring month so far.

And then she walked in.

The bell chimed and Nat cut her eyes over from the worn copy of The Idiot splayed out on the glass counter. The entire vibration in the room changed, the air electrified as the woman strolled in with confidence in her gait, long brown curls bouncing, her electric pink trench coat tied around a tiny waist that was bookended by almost cartoon-like curves, perfect hourglass. She smelled the Tresor by Lancome from across the counter. She stopped short at the counter and spun on her high-heeled boots to face Natasha, a grin breaking out across crimson painted, full lips.

“DARCY!” Natasha practically hurled the book down, coming around the counter in a near scramble as she laughed in disbelief, her gravelly voice hitting a registrar of emotion that wasn’t often witnessed.

“In the flesh,” Darcy responded, probably the only girl more monotone than Natasha herself, as she opened her arms and pulled her into a warm, close hug.

Darcy Lewis, Natasha’s longtime favorite customer, everybody’s favorite stripper.

Thankfully, no one else was in the store because true to form, Darcy took the opportunity to slip her hands down to Natasha’s ass, pulling her in closer until they were hip to hip and arching in to press against her. Nat’s breath hitched in her throat only moments before they were kissing, the familiar taste of Darcy’s cinnamon gum and lip gloss sending a thrum straight to her clit.

Longtime favorite customer, everybody’s favorite stripper, in the Top 3 of Natasha’s Best Bootycalls.

It had only happened a few times to date, but this was more than enough to make a lasting impression. The first time Natasha saw her, Darcy had her hair blown out straight with blunt bangs and thick-rimmed glasses; she looked more like a librarian than a stripper and it might have passed her entirely if not for a/ the girl’s animal magnetism and b/ the gaggle of girls with her that she had seen dancing at clubs before. Darcy had the cool-girl edge down pat, an air of confidence that seemed to stem from some deep well that most people lacked, and the most killer set of tits, hips and lips Natasha had ever seen on a woman. Three minutes of watching her shop with her friends and she was practically salivating. What she hadn’t anticipated was that Darcy was not only magnetic but warm, witty and clever, quickly becoming a favored customer on attitude alone. Darcy was as big a book nerd as Nat and the two traded recommendations and reviews in the same breath as hair tips and small talk about the industry. Natasha always gave her a steep discount on shoes and hosiery, which got pricey quickly for a dancer, and Darcy always made sure Nat was three strippers thick every time she went to the strip club, solo or with company.

The first time, Darcy took Nat back to a private room for a lapdance. The chemistry between them was so strong that they ended up making out in the booth, Nat’s hand down Darcy’s lacy panties that she’d sold her the day before until neither of them could take much more teasing and the dancer cut her shift short to take the redhead back to her apartment, pull her into a soft, big bed and keep her there all night. The mere thought of how Darcy looked, naked and soft and delicious with her pale skin and dark hair and those bright, fierce blue eyes could send Natasha from zero to wet in seconds – she was still one of her go-to fantasies, even now. The feeling had clearly been mutual – a whirlwind of texted nudes, late night phone calls and post-night shift hookups happened for about one blissful week happened until Darcy popped by the shop one night with ice cream, took Natasha out to her car during her half-hour break and ate her out in the backseat before announcing that she was going to Florida to dance and wouldn’t be back for a while, maybe not at all. Natasha had been bummed but understood – Florida and Texas were hotbeds for dancers, the best places to make money besides LA which, according to Darcy, was oversaturated anyway.

Natasha hadn’t heard from her since that last night. She had met Clint three weeks later.

Darcy pulled away from the kiss with a big grin, a hand coming up to artfully twist the mess of Natasha’s red hair back from her face as her eyes sparked wickedly, “Hello. I missed you, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“When did you get back?” was the only breathless response Nat could manage at the time, some alarm at the back of her mind reminding her that they were in her place of employment and a customer could wander in and see this at any point in time, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“That’s actually pretty romantic,” Darcy snarked, leaning back just enough to make the stance a little less sexualized though she looped her fingers through the worn leather of Natasha’s belt, “Just got back into town, had to take care of some family stuff. I won’t be here long, I just wanted to come see you.”

A beat passed as Natasha tried unsuccessfully to read the signals of Darcy. On one hand, this could be exactly what she said it was, a courtesy I’m-still-alive visit that happened to have a side of sexual tension; on the other, it could be one of those visits that ended in multiple orgasms and her head spinning for days after Darcy was gone, still able to smell her perfume on her own skin. Darcy herself was quite wise but her presence was a whirlwind, a tornado that came tearing in, lifted up everything in its path with zero intention of setting things back down where they originally were. It never had enough emotional connotation to err on the more painful side of confusing, but she definitely threw Natasha for a loop, every single time.

Nat’s eyes moved to the perfect lipstick on Darcy’s full, smirking mouth and figured it was one hundred percent worth it. Who said men were the only ones who thought with their genitals.

“I’ll shut down at midnight.”

***

It was exactly what Natasha had needed – a dirty, unemotional but chemically charged fuck in a hotel room.

Natasha had practically skidded into her parking spot on two wheels, spotting the numbers on the building’s wall and coming in for a quick landing. She couldn’t help but be at least a little amused with herself in hindsight when she remembered taking the stairs two at a time in her chunky-heeled boots – deceptively comfortable and agile – until she was at the door, barely getting a knock in before Darcy had pulled her inside.

Something about being with Darcy made Natasha feel extra androgynous. God knows she wasn’t lacking in the curve department herself – easy full C cup, maybe a D around her period and otherwise soft and girlish – but Darcy was so feminine it seemed exaggerated, from the long beautiful hair to the cups running over and the thick hourglass of her pale body always clad in something extra girly. Maria was lean and sleek, all long limbs and utilitarian design that made Natasha feel more like, well, Darcy. This was the opposite; she was undeniably female presenting but in her tight jeans, black v-neck and snug fitted motorcycle jacket she felt more like Darcy’s boyish girlfriend, more like an aggressor. Gender roles – fascinating, troubling, and weird in day to day life but here just an added flavor to the pot.

Darcy stepped away long enough to peel off her robe and expose very nice lingerie, her breasts nearly spilling over the demi-cups in soft, pillowy bounces and her thigh high stockings a beautiful sheer black, tethered neatly to a gorgeous garter belt. She wasn’t wearing panties, shaved bare like most dancers, something Nat didn’t necessarily prefer but somehow seemed exciting on Darcy. Naturally, she had her black Perspex heels on.

“Hi,” she purred, raking back her luxurious hair, the absolute picture of female opulence that made Nat wanna hit her knees and pray, mouth practically watering for her as it was.

“Hi,” Natasha croaked back, pulling off her own jacket and bending to unzip the sides of her boots, never taking her eyes off the offering in front of her.

Darcy grinned that dazzling smile that surely had as much to do with her success as a dancer as the body she’d been given, “I missed you. Thought about you all the time.”

“Thought about you too,” Natasha almost echoed back, voice huskier than usual as she found the words troublesome to find, a hindrance to the process of getting naked as she watched Darcy turn slowly and walk towards a standard king-sized bed.

A familiar purple duffle bag was laying on the floor, open to reveal a harness strapped in and ready to go. Maybe later. Nat had other plans for the time being, namely getting Darcy on that bed and eating her from behind until she was begging for something, anything more to bring her all the way off.

It was a good plan.

Nat had to fight her own impulses to keep her hand out of her own panties the entire time lest she come too quickly and lose momentum – the possibility was always real. Darcy smelled and tasted like no other woman she’d ever gone down on and it lit her up in every sense of the term, got her so wet she was practically dripping on the carpet. When Darcy’s thighs started to tremble as her sweet, torn cries began getting louder and louder, Natasha pulled her over roughly but smoothly onto her back and buried her face in her soft, plush cunt to finish her off for round one and maybe get some attention on her own insistently throbbing clit before her head exploded in sexual frustration.

The beautiful scarlet flush that moved up Darcy’s stark white skin, across her tits and up her chest to her neck and face, reminded Natasha of that first time in Darcy’s old apartment and nearly took her breath away. It was just as good as she’d remembered – maybe even better – to be back at the other woman’s mercy.

Darcy was a rubber band that snapped back quickly in all matters, orgasms being no different, and she rubbed Natasha’s soaking panties long enough to configure her to the edge of the bed, legs spread, so she could hit her knees and return the favor. Unlike Maria, who definitely enjoyed eating pussy but had a less pornographic sensibility about putting on a show, Darcy kept and held eye contact where she could, those deeply blue eyes rimmed in smudged black liner fixed on Natasha’s pinkened, sweaty face, nose flush against her abdomen as she made a mess of her lipstick on the redhead’s pussy.

While the energy exchange of sex left Natasha utterly wrecked and exhausted more often than not, there was something electric between herself and Darcy that sent her back up for rounds two, three, maybe four if they were both extra industrious. The second time she came against Darcy’s expertly soft, bubblegum pink tongue, Nat developed a sharp interest in the harness in the bag and before she really developed anything resembling a game plan, she had the brunette bent across the dresser, hair wrapped up tightly in her hand as she put that considerable core strength to use.

By four am, they’d fucked on every flat surface in the room and, just like before, Natasha had lost count of the orgasms to the numb buzzing between her legs that told her she’d definitely overdone it but hey, moderation was for cowards.

Sitting uncomfortably at a booth in Denny’s, she gazed across at Darcy with her hair pulled up in a messy bun, makeup corrected with a wipe only so there were still smeary remnants of liner and mascara rimming her beautiful eyes, mouth still flushed by otherwise fresh as a daisy and to any passerby completely innocuous. Why of course she hadn’t just been face deep in the redhead sitting across from her! Whatever on earth would give you that idea?

The waiter and waitress flirted, fretted over her, brought her extra creamer and sugar like her smiles of gratitude were tips unto themselves. Natasha couldn’t help but swoon a little as well; without all her makeup and the gloss and glamour of her usual immaculate presentation, Darcy was no less enchanting. Everyone fell in love with her at least a little bit. Maybe Nat was no different.

“So the guy you’re living with – is that getting serious?”

Nat snapped back to attention after an awkwardly long moment of just watching Darcy’s mouth move, eyes widening in sudden near-alarm before she recovered and shrugged coolly, sipping her own coffee.

“Nah, I mean… I guess not?” she offered, balling up her straw wrapper, “I mean, it’s not NOT serious, it’s just not… I’m not really sure what your litmus of serious is, I guess.”

Darcy’s mouth curved into a smirk that said she already knew what that meant, “My ‘litmus’ is are you in love with him? Like, I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you’re not monogamous on account of how we just spent the entire morning fucking.”

The waiter didn’t so much sputter or stammer as he did glitch, his hand jerking as he reached down with a new glass of water for Natasha, recovering as smoothly as he could with his voice two octaves higher and avoiding eye contact until he was able to scuttle to the back quickly. Darcy watched him with that knowing smile, turning to Nat and bursting into muffled laughs as she wiped her nose with her sleeve.

“Well, I just made that kid’s entire life, didn’t I?”

Nat shook her head, rolling her eyes but unable to suppress her own chuckles as she chewed the straw for a long moment, “…I don’t think I’m in love with him. I’m definitely in something with him, though.”

Darcy paused, considering this point before tearing open two more packs of sugar.

“Well, if it’s something, it’s not nothing.”

***

Morning was fully in swing as Natasha walked down to the market by her apartment. She knew the minute she hit the door she was going to crash and crash hard, and while the temptation of oblivion was a nice tug away from all this introspection she was suddenly having, it occurred to her that she might need to buy a few things for the fridge for when she inevitably awoke ravenous however many hours later. Another on the long list of tics against her in this quest for adulthood: her fridge rarely had more than old takeout, some root beer cans, the occasional actual six pack of whatever snob beer was on sale at Fresh Market and vodka. Nat didn’t keep much food around the house despite a high metabolism that demanded feeding at frequent intervals due to the fact that she mostly ate out (pun intended?) and spent the bulk of her time anymore at the shop.

She cruised down the aisle at the local market to grab another six pack of Dr. Brown’s and some bread for toast, noting that her lips were getting pretty chapped (thanks, Darcy) and her pussy still ached something fierce, a satisfied but uncomfortable feeling she wasn’t unused to. Still, the mere proximity of Darcy had that effect on her, the turnover of her mental filing cabinet to leave a pile of papers on the floor. Pondering the statement she’d posed unto her – “well, if it’s something, it’s not nothing,” which would have sounded profoundly stupid coming from anyone else lacking Darcy’s intent and inflection – she almost didn’t notice the buzzing in her pocket until the phone’s bulk swung softly into her side and she dug the damn thing out to see what it was that Tony probably wanted now.

It was from Clint, who damn near never texted unless he was letting her know he was on his way to or from somewhere that had food she might want.

_Have fun?_

Nat chewed the inside of her cheek and paused, looking at the message. From anyone else – especially Maria – that text might have carried some hint of jealousy or anger, but from Clint it was nothing more than a check in. She knew if she could hear his voice, it would never sound hurt or bitter, just honest and curious. Clint had several mean bones in his body but had yet to expose any of them around her.

Despite knowing all this, it bothered her. Guilt. Like she’d done something wrong when she knew she hadn’t.

Hesitating a moment longer, she moved to the line and dropped her stuff onto the conveyer belt, willfully ignoring the clerk who willfully ignored her as she texted out a quick response.

_Yeah, just really tired now. Gonna go home and crash. You coming back?_

“That’ll be eleven sixty four.”

She dug out her debit card and swiped it, still pondering, still off elsewhere. They had mutually agreed on no monogamy. She knew without a doubt that Clint was unbothered. She’d even considered inviting him along if Darcy was going to be in town long enough for another roll in the hay but something about it seemed like a bad idea, like it was hard enough for her to focus on anything other than Darcy when they were together and she didn’t want Clint to feel uninvolved.

Her phone buzzed again.

_Not tonight but can I see you for dinner if you’re up by then?_

The haze of being tired coupled with the odd emotional discomfort she’d been in since leaving Denny’s had Natasha furrowing her brow and trying to seek out some deeper meaning in a text that likely meant nothing.

_Why? Is something wrong?_

She couldn’t shake the immediate reaction of “he’s going to break up with me”, even when the next text came in.

_No??? I just wanted to have dinner._

Nat chewed the inside of her cheek again and it began to taste like metal. What the hell was wrong with her? Why was she being so paranoid?

_You ok Nat?_

A cab honked at her as she nearly walked into the crosswalk, reflexively cursing in Russian before stepping back onto the curb. The cabbie screamed something out the window that didn’t fully reach her ears, which were burning red in embarrassment as she noted how many people had stopped to stare. Shoving her phone back into her pocket, she finally darted across the sidewalk with her bags tightly in hand, thankful that the steps to her building were only right around the corner.

The chime for a Facetime call began in her pocket and she sighed, reaching in to turn it off before reaching her stoop like it was the only safe place in the entire city, beyond ready to throw this shit on the table, take off her pants and go to bed for the first time in over twenty four hours.

A nap would help. A nap always helped.


	5. Polishing The Pearl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It made Natasha feel like a villain, how open and understanding Clint was. He didn’t lie. He didn’t obfuscate, play games, or take shit personally. He wasn’t a doormat, but he had zero use for macho bullshit – those guys were his favorite to fuck with – and he wasn’t interested in stringing Nat along or making demands.  
>  And here she was, avoiding him like there was something wrong with him, completely convinced there was actually something wrong with her. _
> 
> Oh the times, they are a-changin' - big thinks afoot in matters of life, love and career mean that Natasha's days of refusing to confront her ambivalence are numbered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... who else has had this stomach virus that's been going around?
> 
> Also, there is no smut this chapter, but I promise to make it up to you in Chapter Six, which will be pretty much non-stop with few breaks between. 
> 
> As always, thank you all for reading, commenting, kudos and any other wonderful feedback I've received. <3

Luckily, “dinner” didn’t have any sort of strongly established time frame aside from somewhere between four pm and midnight because when street traffic finally woke Natasha with the cacophonic melody of car horns and screaming New Yorkers, it was already nearly dark. She sat up with a start, tangled up in her blue-grey comforter and in a cami and panties, and rubbed her eyes as she tried to remember what it was that had struck her with such urgency that it pulled her straight out of almost eight hours of slumber. Dinner. Right. Clint. Picking up her phone, she noted a simple two texts that she had ignored when she came barreling in to hurl her food stuffs into the kitchen, strip her pants and jacket off somewhere between and put the damn thing on the bedside table with the ringer off.

_Hey it seems like you really don’t wanna talk so I’m not gonna push it, just tell me if you’re not okay_

_And text me when you wake up, doesn’t matter what time, we can go eat if you want_

It made Natasha feel like a villain, how open and understanding Clint was. He didn’t lie. He didn’t obfuscate, play games, or take shit personally. He wasn’t a doormat, but he had zero use for macho bullshit – those guys were his favorite to fuck with – and he wasn’t interested in stringing Nat along or making demands.

And here she was, avoiding him like there was something wrong with him, completely convinced there was actually something wrong with her.

Climbing out of bed made her muscles scream, finally showing her exactly how much she had overexerted with Darcy. She padded into the bathroom, avoiding turning on the lights for the moment, certain she looked like a wreck. Pissing burned, that uric acid on raw flesh. There were a few bruises where the harness had been. Overall it was satisfying but the burn of her inner thighs and hips reminded her that, like all things with Darcy, it was a give and take.

When she finally hit the light, the Natasha that stared back at her was bleary eyed and dark-bagged, her hair askew and face puffy with sleep, not unrecognizable but as much not herself either. It felt like she was still dragging lead-heavy limbs into the shower with her when she cut on the water, cumbersome and annoying through the cloud of barely being awake. Hot water helped the situation after a good ten minutes, soothing away the tightness in her muscles and the tension between her shoulders, at the base of her skull, the places she usually carried her stress. Natasha could hear her phone ringing in the bedroom over the sound of the pouring water, annoyed that she hadn’t thought to grab it but enjoying another few minutes of solitude. It wasn’t Clint. He said he wasn’t going to call, which mean he wasn’t going to call. She’d never gotten around to individualized ringtones – if she’s being honest she kind of enjoys the grabbaggery of a call being potentially anyone until she saw the screen.

The voicemail chime went off and Natasha knew it was Maria. Who the fuck other than Maria left voicemails anymore?

A good twenty minutes later, after Natasha had finally climbed out squeaky-clean to rejoin the world, she checked it to find that, indeed, Maria had called and left a voicemail. Texted, too.

_Sorry I bailed on you Wednesday night. Call me back and we’ll get drinks?_

This would be a perfect out. She and Maria’s situation was so far less complicated than anything happening between herself and Clint. She could say Maria was still reeling from the possible federal inquiry into the clinic, that she was really stressed out and needed some girl time. Clint would understand. Clint always understood. Somehow that made Nat feel worse; she wasn’t a runner. Natasha Romanov didn’t bail when her problems got hard. She faced them head on, looked them in the eyes, and refused to budge an inch, the approach that had gotten her plenty of things she wanted but was afraid she didn’t deserve. The lesson there had been reinforced to her over and over again: you don’t have to be confident, you just have to look confident. And there was little that Natasha did better than look confident, sometimes to the point where she even fooled herself.

_Can’t tonight, sorry – was in the shower when you called. Tomorrow?_

***

It was twenty to midnight when Natasha slid into a booth at the local Miller’s Ale House, her stomach in a tight knot from the moment she noted the silvery-blonde top of Clint’s head from over the partition. A Kesha song was playing on the overhead radio and he was bopping along slightly – Clint fucking loves Kesha, completely unashamed  – when she plopped down, steely blue eyes cutting up and over at her. He looked exhausted. Clint usually looked some shade or another of tired but tonight he looked wracked, almost like as many miles of rough road as his brother typically did. Despite this, there was relief in the little smile that tugged up the corner of his naturally downturned mouth. Natasha’s gut felt like a tundra.

“There you are.”

Natasha sighed, collecting her words carefully as she put her elbows up on the table like she was preparing to negotiate a contract. The entire cab ride there had been nothing but internal dialogue, running over every little thing she even contemplated saying to him to get a scope on all the variables and maybe, just maybe suss out what the fuck it was exactly that she WANTED to say to him. This entire thing had felt ridiculous, she had gotten so worked up and for what? He wasn’t mad, she wasn’t obligated to answer to him and he certainly wasn’t insinuating that she was, she wasn’t in love with Darcy and prepared to run away with her to Bali to live off mangos on the beach, so what the hell was the problem?

“I think I’m gonna get my period soon,” she blurted out gracelessly, completely sidestepping anything else in the way of explanation.

Clint blinked for a moment, staring at her, “…okay.”

Frustrated by her own trigger happiness, Nat swarmed a hand up by her head and sighed in frustration, “That’s not… no, I mean, that’s why I’ve been so weird. I think I’m about due. I’m sorry, Clint, I’ve just been so weird the last couple of days.”

“Well, I’m not gonna act like I wasn’t a little bit worried that it was something I did or said,” he responded, pulling off his beer casually and gesturing to the one in front of her that she previously hadn’t noticed, “But we’ve been pretty up-front. I figured if I fucked up, you’d tell me.”

Nat took the beer and batted the bottle between her hands for a moment before shrugging and taking a sip, “You didn’t do anything, Clint, it’s been me. If anything, you’ve been great about giving me space.”

The waitress brought over a massive plate of cheese fries and Natasha thought for a moment she’d cry. She stared across the heaping pile of cheese and potato with her favorite draft beer in her hand and considered that she might be the biggest idiot on the planet for not locking it down and locking it down hard. Clint seemed unaware, broadening his grin at her.

“Do I have great taste or do I have great taste?”

He dug in unceremoniously, leaving Natasha to stare for another long moment as a realization like a freight train smacked into her.

She was in love with him.

She was sure now.

Apparently all it took was cheese fries and beer.

***

Of course, telling him hadn’t been an option. They went back to the apartment, thought about having sex before realizing they were both too bloaty on greasy food to even consider that much sloshing around and then fell asleep in a pile on top of her blankets. By the time Nat awoke the next morning she felt like thoroughly microwaved dog shit – she had a headache from oversleeping so many hours and was still nauseas from last night’s bad food choices. Brushing her teeth, she lamented a time not too long ago – age 25, actually – where she could eat whatever the fuck she wanted, drink til she blacked out and recover nicely enough to work the next morning. Youth was truly wasted on the young.

Clint was still snoring when she passed by the bed to pull on leather leggings and a red sweater, one arm slung off the edge of the bed. He smelled like beer, man sweat and the leather of his motorcycle jacket, absolutely intoxicating and pulling at those internal strings that had tightened that much more from the moment she’d struggled to change the subject after her big realization, and the urge to climb back into bed and finally extract out what she wanted last night was almost unbearable until she forced herself to acknowledge that she was going to be late for work if she didn’t leave right the fuck now. Sighing, she paused and bent to kiss the hot skin of his shoulder. He didn’t stir.

She and Tony had their bi-monthly meeting at the nearest greasy spoon diner to discuss projections for the next month, statistics from the last and battle plans for staff and scheduling. Personally, she loved these meetings – they were informal enough to be held at a fucking diner but important enough to remind her that she really did have a bigger stake in the company than she realized sometimes. While she’d been originally hesitant to take on a higher mantel at what was supposed to just be a kitschy menial job while she figured out what she _actually_ wanted to do with her life, the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of her life had shifted in such a manner that she soon saw a clear path through the trees, and surprisingly enough it was the road she was already standing on. Tony liked her enough to give her a chance to move up; there was an opportunity to take a job she was enjoying very much and maybe make a career out of it. Sure, that degree in Russian Lit would be utterly wasted but hey, what the fuck was she supposed to do with it anyway?

“Tolstoy,” Tony greeted her without looking up when she arrived at their usual booth, a root beer already sitting on the table across from his half-diet Coke, half-diet Dr. Pepper (“What can I say, I like drinking things I could use to power a battery”).

“Hemmingway,” she returned, dropping into her half of the booth and shoving her little black purse into the corner before idly flipping the menu, “What are we having today?”

Natasha had no idea why she asked – they both tended to eat the same three things in varying cycles. Two of a kind. Maybe it’s why they worked so well together in business venture.

After ordering two rounds of French toast and hash browns, they opted to get down to business: projections were steady and consistent with the increase they always expected when tax return season rolled around, with numbers sliding steadily upward to the point where the day clerks sometimes hit over a thousand dollars on what was normally a four-to-six hundred shift. The night shifts were doubling business – which meant shoplifting was going up as well and new cameras were needed for the back end of the store, still a little hard to spot from the front monitor. Tony threatened to prosecute, even kept the sign that said so up at the front of the shop, but to the best of Natasha’s knowledge he’d never actually done it. Whitney was spending most of her time at the smaller store across town (“I don’t care if you have to send her to the moon, Tony, just keep her off adjoining shifts with me and everything will be fine”) while Wanda, who Tony regarded as his fastest learner and best self-starter since Nat herself, was doing excellent work there at the home base.

“I’m not sure how you do it,” Tony complimented over a mouth full of French toast, gesturing at Natasha with his fork, “But you train ‘em up better than anyone I’ve ever met. You’re actually a better trainer than I am. Don’t you ever repeat that I said that.”

Nat smirked and took a sip of her drink before shrugging with purposeful indifference, “Whatever you say, boss. I don’t do anything very different, I just try to suss out if they have it in them early.”

There had been trainees who had quit (or been fired) under Natasha, sure, but this job just wasn’t for everybody and Nat let them know that quickly. Nobody could accuse her of wasting their time if she caught a personality that she knew wouldn’t shape up to the environment.

“And that’s valuable,” Tony countered, still chewing gracelessly like a man for whom charm came hand in hand with sometimes being obnoxious, “I’m just saying. There’s a reason you get sent to all my flagging stores. Luckily, there haven’t been any in quite some time.”

True. Natasha had been the go-to mercenary if a store was failing its projections hard enough to grab Tony’s attention. She’d sweep in, make assessments about the staff, the inventory and the placement of the store and then advise Tony accordingly. Having someone fired had been nerve wracking the first few times and Nat seriously questioned if she had any place or right to guide those decisions but Tony had assuaged her fears early (“You’re doing what’s right for the business, and you’re doing what’s right for them – if they’re not happy or growing here, it’s not doing them any good to be here”). Knowing that Tony had never turned down an inquest for unemployment for those who were culled made her feel a little better as well. He was right; if they wanted Salacious to keep getting bigger and better, it was important to keep an eye on the browning leaves and trim off where necessary.

“So,” Tony began after a slug of his abomination of a drink, “Remember that lil’ pipe dream I had about being bi?”

“You came out as bi years ago, Tony.”

“Bi _coastal_ ,” he corrected with a smirk, proud of his own little joke, “As in opening the West Coast branch of Salacious stores?”

Nat’s casually disinterested demeanor changed on a dime and her eyes widened as she shifted to lean over the table, “Nuh-uh.”

“Yeah-huh,” Tony grinned back, “I’m flying out tomorrow to meet with a realtor about a possible business location. The first one’s gonna be in LA, if it pans out okay we’ll look into expanding into San Francisco and San Diego.”

Natasha sat in stunned silence for a moment before she was able to articulate any questions, “Wait, so this is… like, a done deal? You’re gonna do it as soon as the location gets settled?”

“Yep. I actually got the reference from Pep so I guess she wants to play nice again.”

Nat’s expression softened. Tony’s divorce had been horribly hard on him – she came to the agency around the time it was really kicking off, and it had been a tough climb back to normalcy for him. The fact that they were speaking again period was a good sign for both of them moving on, the referral an olive branch that nobody else would have understood except her.

Tony was very selective with whom he let into his personal life. Nat happened to be his only work exception.

“Well that’s good,” Natasha’s tone cautioned with an underlying ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Tony’ as she stirred her straw idly in her drink, “But it didn’t answer my question.”

“Ah, right,” Tony flagged the waitress for the check – he always picked up the check – and nodded, “Yeah, it’s done. The funds are allocated, we’re going to be moving as soon as the building is secured. So, grand opening in the spring.”

This was huge news. Nat chewed the inside of her cheek as she processed what all this meant: a bigger business with bi-coastal creds to speak of, extended staff – staff she’d likely never see, which would be weird since she knew everyone on the east coast roster – and a separate set of books for Tony to pour over every month. He’d have to hire an assistant. Inventory would need to double, if not triple depending on floor space. They’d need to study up on what sells in California – top sellers are rarely the same from region to region, California would likely have its own system of what was passe and what was new and exciting, and there would-

“You over there thinking like a regional manager?” Tony asked with a smirk that suggested he didn’t even need to ask.

Nat was sucked back down into the now with a faint start, shaking her head like erasing the image off an etch-a-sketch, “Shit, yes. I mean, there’s so much to do, you’re gonna need to-“

“I got it covered, Romanov,” Tony smiled at her a little broader, clearly excited about something but not giving up the ghost just yet, “Let’s just say you might wanna prepare for a lot of overtime hours. And a raise.”

Nat’s eyebrows went up. She was already making a pretty solidly impressive salary for retail of any kind.

“We’ll talk,” he said quickly, signing off on his credit card slip before gathering up his things, “Now, I have some things to do before I fly out and if I’m not mistaken, you’re joining Wanda for unboxing. Get going, missy.”

The smack of his rolled up papers on her shoulder was slight, affectionate. Sometimes Nat wanted to hit her knees and thank the powers that be for a boss that wasn’t only good to her but _liked_ her, treated her like an equal instead of a subordinate. She took down the last of her drink in a quick slug and then stood up, wiping her hands on a napkin.

“Be safe, text when you get there.”

“Yes, mother.”

Nat smirked, pulling her purse free from the corner before hitting the sidewalk and aiming herself north. Another benefit of this place was its proximity to work itself.

Natasha didn’t really mind walking in any event but it was especially necessary today. The extra time to get her head around all the major changes coming down the pipes was a blessing; she navigated street traffic with nary a thought to the act itself, the smells and sounds of life in the city passing her blindly while she contemplated her place in the mess of it all. Another store opening was a big deal in and of itself, but a bicoastal expansion was a much bigger beast. It would bring a lot of complications that she was loathe to deal with, but it also spelled big growth for a company she loved and wanted to see thrive. How cool would it be to have been on the ground floor of the birth of a major retailer? And a raise? Most raises were never more than a dollar an hour on average but the last time Tony had told Nat she was moving up, he bumped her from hourly to salary with a hefty leap that took her from being able to pay rent and debts with enough left over to get by to living comfortably and nearly debt free, her student loan the last of the stragglers. What the hell would she do with a pay increase? She didn’t wanna move, loved her apartment, and didn’t really buy much outside of the necessities. Then again, she was almost thirty, wasn’t she? Maybe it was time to upgrade her crap to better-quality crap.

Nat was still calculating how many pairs of Black Milk leggings she could finance per check until her collection had been duplicated fully when she finally hit the door, the chiming of the bell bringing her back into the moment.

As soon as she walked in, the young man that had been partially leaning on the glass as he spoke to Wanda cut his eyes over at her. Nat couldn’t help but eyeball him longer than was necessary – sometimes a force of habit to remind an over-eager would be customer that he was being watched and needed to step off the clerk before he got himself banned from the store, but in this case more out of curiosity and the sensation that she might know him from somewhere. His hair hung in shaggy almost-curls, a dark brown at the roots and but bleached the rest of the way, spanning from bad-job brassy to a nearly silvery blonde at the ends and she got the idea it was probably much curlier before he tried to murder it with chemical processing. His facial hair was a three-day scruff set on a remarkably chiseled jaw, offsetting those severe blue eyes that looked almost sad in how round they were. Those eyes were eerily familiar. He was wearing a blue tracksuit and gray sneakers and though he kept an air of devil-may-care ease, she noted that his shoes were immaculately clean. He smelled like expensive cologne applied a little too vigorously for her liking.

Wanda had nearly lurched back away from the counter when Natasha came in and was now raking back her hair in an attempt to be casual. Was this guy propositioning her? Furthermore, was Natasha interrupting something?

And why did this motherfucker look so familiar, especially when his lips curled into a sort-of smile as he watched her cross the room?

“Hi Natasha,” Wanda began, her voice notably higher than usual, “You have good meeting?”

Nat stashed her purse under the counter, deeper than usual in case this kid was casing out the joint for a potential robbery. It wouldn’t be the first time. She kept her eyes on him until he finally looked away, back to Wanda before he began speaking in a language Nat recognized as Slavic but not Russian enough for her to understand it. Suspicious or no, she had to admit one thing – he was gorgeous. Beautiful face, tall and broad shouldered, self-possessed. He looked at and leaned towards Wanda with a subconscious intimacy that Nat could have read across the room and she knew immediately that they knew each other, probably Biblically.

“Yep, exciting stuff,” Natasha responded, circling the counter to take a casual lean across the way from the guy, leaving Wanda somewhere in the middle, “Friend?”

The young man’s lip quirked at the corner again and he opened his mouth to speak when Wanda quickly cut him off.

“Brother. This is my brother, Pietro.”

Pietro shot her a little look that Natasha surprisingly couldn’t read, but the immediate response that hit her instinct was _she’s lying_.

“Hello,” Pietro greeted, raising his hand in a little wave.

Same accent. And the eyes… that’s why he looked so goddamn familiar. He looked like Wanda. This was the twin brother she had mentioned. This made Nat feel instantly better about what she had taken to be a missed cue; of course they were intimate, they were twins. They shared DNA. Still, the nagging sensation that Wanda was somehow being deceitful didn’t leave her.

Choosing to ignore it – she had her reasons, whatever they were – Natasha gave him a little half-smile and nodded back, “Hey.”

Wanda turned back to Pietro with something in her eyes that Natasha couldn’t quite place and gestured at the door, “You gonna go and let me work now?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he replied, tone teasing as he swatted at her arm before looking back up to find Natasha’s eyes still on him, “Natasha. Is nice to meet you. My sister says good things about you.”

Nat cut her smirk at Wanda, who shrugged and smiled back in that small, blink-and-you-miss-it way of hers. Pietro moved towards the door.

“You too,” Nat said coolly, watching him depart and head out to that loud little blaster of a car.

Once she was satisfied that he was leaving, she turned to look back at Wanda with a far less guarded smile. There was still something there, she noted, in the way that Wanda tucked her hair behind her ears and began quickly trying to find something to do, some sort of avoidance that Nat hadn’t seen in her since her very early days at the store. That little voice reminded her quietly that there was something here she was missing, but having no siblings of her own, Natasha was quick to remind herself that it might just be one of those things she wasn’t equipped to understand.

“So…” Natasha moved around the counter, grabbed the inventory catalog and flopped into the massaging chair, determined to change the air enough to make Wanda comfortable again, “What do you think is the top seller in California?”

 


	6. Tipping The Velvet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Phil called. Can you double-dip tonight or you want me to tell him it’s just me?_
> 
>  
> 
> Chewing her lip, Nat paused to consider it. Maria was, like most all of Nat’s female lovers, more careful than the men tended to be. She left her apartment pleasantly sore but never raw or aching the way she sometimes did with Bruce – too big for his own good and careful to be mindful of her but not always succeeding – or Clint, whose athletic pace could be trying until he was reminded to slow down. If anything, Maria could serve as an excellent warmup - insolong as she didn’t know she was a warmup. That would be the last thing on the planet Maria would have appreciated. 
> 
> Natasha - doable twice in one night? Also, a revelation regarding Wanda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the chapters of this story open with a note from me, apologizing for the delay in posting. However, this was the only one where I actively claimed it would be up by an x amount of time and naturally, it's about a week late. I apologize - I'm about to start training for a new job, my partner's depression and anxiety hit a bad spike, and I had to re-write several parts of this chapter because I was extremely unhappy with how they turned out the first time around. 
> 
> That said, hopefully the finished product is worth the wait - I'm smutting in compensation for the lack thereof in previous updates (but always in service to the story). 
> 
> Some one-shots (some Marvel, some not) will be coming along soon, so watch this space - and I actually got a request regarding OC/Marvel stuff, so that may be on the docket soon as well. 
> 
> As always, thank you guys so much for your continued patience and patronage - I've gotten pretty chummy with a few of you (you especially, Kyran <3) and it's always a pleasure to talk to and learn about the people who like to read this story.

Phil called.

Naturally, Natasha was en route to a date-night with Maria that she’d put off for long enough when Clint’s text chime went off – the Jetson’s doorbell, he chose it for himself for whatever reason. Nat was right outside of Maria’s building in a trench coat with a very specifically chosen dress and chemise set; she dug out her phone in near-irritation when she clicked the message and waited for the damn thing to load.

_Phil called. Can you double-dip tonight or you want me to tell him it’s just me?_

Chewing her lip, Nat paused to consider it. Maria was, like most all of Nat’s female lovers, more careful than the men tended to be. She left her apartment pleasantly sore but never raw or aching the way she sometimes did with Bruce – too big for his own good and careful to be mindful of her but not always succeeding – or Clint, whose athletic pace could be trying until he was reminded to slow down. If anything, Maria could serve as an excellent warmup - insolong as she didn’t know she was a warmup. That would be the last thing on the planet Maria would have appreciated.

“Are you fucking serious?” Natasha muttered to herself as she began typing out a response.

Of course he would call after having disappeared completely, yet again. It wasn’t unlike him to go long stretches without contact but the most recent patch had been pushing it into either “dead in a ditch” or “pretending it never happened” territory, most likely the latter; Phil had school-aged kids and a marriage that existed purely on paper. He and his wife had quietly sought out other partners years ago, resolving to stay together and pleasant until the kids were out of the house, or so she and Clint had been told. For all they knew, he was stepping out on a none-the-wiser wife who maybe wouldn’t have been so welcoming of his stark raving bi-curiosity, which was its own subject of conversation numerous times after he was gone. Nat had insisted early on that he only paid attention to her in the bedroom because it made him feel less self-conscious about his utter passion for Clint’s dick and sodomy if there were boobs and a vagina in the room he could anchor himself with. The closest Clint had ever come to being cross with her, the responding mini-glare and cool lecture reminded her not to make speculations about other people’s sexualities (“you know how shitty it is to just assume all bisexual men are secretly gay, right?”). Tail between her legs, Nat had apologized and resolved to do better, reminding herself that maybe the enthusiasm for Clint was due to his metaphorical new car smell; Phil had been with female bodied partners his entire life until he started menage-ing with the two of them, why wouldn’t the newest thing be the most exciting?

Still, between the kids and the marriage and the holidays and tax season (as best she could tell he managed soccer dad-ing with a job in finances of some sort), it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear more during the end of the year or the beginning of the next. Summer was typically Phil’s time to shine – kids busy with their burgeoning social lives, wife taking Zumba classes and presumably seeing her new partner on the side, less schedule restrictions. He’d ditch the minivan and head into the city to spend an evening or (on rare occasion) a weekend with them, having a taste of the carefree poly city life he seemed to romanticize so much.

It wasn’t that Natasha didn’t like Phil – she let him fuck her, after all – but he was hard to relate to. Their lives were so different, their routines and priorities so unthinkable to one another. Naturally, Social Lubricant Clint had zero such problems, always the one to put a new person at ease. Sometimes Natasha thought Clint had missed a higher calling as some sort of ambassador if she imagined for a second he could handle all the political fuckery that was bound to come with the job.

Chewing her lower lip, Natasha clicked out a reply.

_I’ll meet up when I’m done here. Start without me._

Dropping her phone back into her pocket, she proceeded up the stairs, trying to weigh the options of telling Maria she was part of a two-band bill tonight or if it was best to maybe deal with feeling like she was deceiving her and sparing her ego.

Ten minutes later, when she’s on her knees with her chemise somewhere around her ribs, chest pressed into the mattress and purring out moans while Maria tongue-fucks her from behind, she knows she made the right call in keeping her mouth shut. Besides, neither Clint nor Phil eats pussy as well as Maria does, so if nothing else she plays second fiddle to no one in this respect. The sharp smack of Maria’s hand on her ass snaps her back out of her train of thought and into the moment, her back jerking in response to the pain as she gasps out in surprise.

“You here or you somewhere else?” Maria asks all-too-astutely, her observant streak finally achieving a moment of being a literal pain in the ass.

“Here, I’m here,” Natasha pants muffledly, cheek against the sheets as she slides her knees out just a little more, opening herself up for the brunette a little more, “Sorry… long day…”

“Yeah, well, you can tell me about it after you come on my tongue,” Maria responds as matter of factly as usual, evening out the slaps with a crisp shot to the other cheek that makes Natasha’s cunt tighten on nothing.

“Fuck,” she grits out through her teeth, palms coming flat against the bed as Maria goes back in at her with purpose.

Somewhere in the middle of this encounter, some place between shifting to get her own slick center against Maria’s and the tangle of limbs that has to be sorted into something comfortable before she can begin rocking against her, Natasha finally escapes her running thoughts and focuses on nothing but the roll of her hips, the slip of her swollen clit against the slick, soft skin of her partner’s spread cunt on her own. She marvels at how strong Maria’s lean, long leg feels in her hands when she holds it to her shoulder for leverage, pressing kisses to the sole of her elegant foot. She doesn’t worry about having to please Clint and Phil, doesn’t think about the California store, doesn’t wonder what’s up with Wanda – though she has a lovely but brief flash of a vision of her co-worker beneath her, dark nails and rimmed eyes against all the fair skin and white sheet that makes her clit throb. It all drops away and she’s finally able to chase the moment, hand grabbing onto Maria’s hip for leverage as she grinds into her at such a steady gallop that Maria can’t keep up from her position and is relegated to just moaning loudly as she’s fucked into the mattress, surprise tucked somewhere in the raw noise of lust coming out of her throat. This is exactly what she needed. This is exactly what she wanted.

Her orgasm comes so hard and fast it leaves stars in her eyes, but she’s on autopilot and unable to roll to a stop as there’s a primal thudding in her head, in her chest that tells her _keep going. Keep going. Keep coming. Taste that void._ Her nails bite into Maria’s skin and she can hear the other woman wail out in shocked pleasure when she lifts up to use her weight to pin her down, both hands going to grab at her ass for dear life as she fucks herself against her so fast it’s nigh vibrational. They’ve got a safeword – “stop”, very creative – and she hears none of it though this is hardly the usual routine for them given that it’s not Maria’s forte to not be in control. Now, Natasha’s got her on her back, her long leg flush against the redhead’s torso as she fucks another orgasm out of both of them, her moans less high and feminine and coming throaty and ragged now.

When the last one comes she’s struggling to stay up on her knees, thighs trembling from the exertion, panting like she’s dying in the desert. Maria pulls up her knee to ease the strain in her hip, sending Natasha collapsing to the mattress beside her with a groan that’s as rough and weary as the final shot at Iwo Jima, a punctuation mark at the end of an all-caps statement.

She’s not sure how much time passes when Maria finally makes a sound other than heavy breathing, groaning as she drops her hand to her own chest to massage over her collarbones idly.

“Jesus Christ, Natasha,” she rasps, not turning her head to look at her but the intimacy is still there, “You weren’t kidding about that rough week, huh?”

***

She wanted to tell Maria everything, but there were some things she knew that she just wasn’t equipped to understand. Judgment was a quick leap for her, even with her friends, and Nat didn’t feel like having to justify every questionable decision she was making.

She didn’t tell her much, mostly just made space for Maria to rant about everything going on with the clinic. The state was trying to impose new abortion restrictions that would create havoc in an already tenuously hanging system, the doctors who provided the service were under heavy coercion, and it had been a lot of sleepless nights for the clinic manager. Nat couldn’t imagine that kind of stress at a day to day job; there were times when she would look across at Maria and have the small, quiet thought that Maria’s job could get her killed, any day of the week, if some asshole decided her number was up. The notion set a chill to her teeth. That was Maria, though – no amount of scare tactics was going to dissuade her from doing what she was passionate about, and the calculated risk she took every day was part and parcel of waking up and going to work. It was mind boggling.

The walk back to her apartment seemed to go slower than usual, Natasha blessedly free of her own meandering thoughts and in a fucked-out, post-orgasmic haze that allowed her to simply focus on the material details of the world around her instead of running commentary the entire time. It was late but New York City didn’t sleep, a mish-mash of bright lights and loud people. A woman walked her Doberman along the grass patches in the sidewalk, yammering on her cell phone about a work rivalry all the while. The smells of Chinese restaurants, hot dog carts, burger joints assailed her every few feet, an ever changing kaleidoscope of sensory stimulation in a swirl of smells, sounds, neon lights. She passed through the city like she was just a moving piece that came with the set, an extension of the bigger set.

The trip ended on her stoop as always and she suddenly felt the heaviness in her limbs with a vengeance the moment she passed the door and into the hall, the soreness in her hips and thighs becoming loud and clear through the long walk up the stairs. It was going to be one of those sit-down-carefully kind of weeks, like the one time she’d let Maria convince her to do Pilates (Maria can’t do yoga, the dim lights and emphasis on calmness make her too nervous to focus). She didn’t have the cognizance to listen for any sexy noises upon reaching the door, shoving the key in on autopilot before coming in to drop her bag on the floor, peel her jacket off and discard it much the same.

Voices from the bedroom let her know she had either arrived at interval point or the fun was over for the evening; Clint was speaking evenly about something she couldn’t hear and Phil’s responding laugh was loose, casual, as fucked out as she felt. She called out a distant “hey” as she struggled with her boots, Clint’s footsteps coming up the hall until he rounded the corner and finally came into her line of sight.

“Hey babe,” he greeted, clad only in his boxers as he came to wrap a muscular, warm arm around her middle.

He smelled like sweat and sex, maybe a little like soap as he’d no doubt cleaned up a little when they were done (the after-anal dick washing that you never see in porn), a little overly warm as usual and pliant, gentle. She curled into his grasp without thinking and buried her face in his neck, lured by the pheromones there.

“You okay?” he asked near her ear, trying to keep his concern quiet in case there was something wrong she didn’t want to say in front of Phil.

The head of messy, dirty red hair shook against his shoulder and she pulled away almost too easily, raking a hand back through it as she reminded herself for what seemed like the umpteenth time lately to get it together, goddammit. Still, ever since the revelation she’d had about the depth of her feelings for Clint she was walking a tightrope between the intense urge towards an almost overbearing intimacy and playing it cool until she knew exactly what to say, what to do to convey it to him. Words weren’t the easiest thing for Nat in any circumstance, much less these choppy waters.

“Yeah, sorry, shit,” she corrected as smoothly as she could, raking a hand back through her hair and noting that yeah, a shower was gonna be a real necessity here shortly, “I’m just sleepy s’all. You guys have a good night?”

There was a brief pause as Clint’s grey-blues checked her over to make sure there wasn’t some minor detail that would give her away, tell him otherwise. The guys in his military unit didn’t call him Hawkeye for no reason – he could choose to be oblivious but once those alarms were tripped, there wasn’t much that got past him. Apparently, Natasha’s inability to suss out what was happening her own damn self made it impossible for him to spot it and an easy smile came back to his lips as he leaned in, kissed the side of her head and slid a hand down her back to rub idly.

“Yep,” he tossed his head back over his shoulder to indicate the bedroom, “You mind if he crashes? It’s later than we thought it was gonna be.”

 _Shit,_ Natasha thought, realizing she hadn’t even bothered to look at the time.

“I can always head back if you guys had plans,” Phil added from behind her, coming up the hallway in just his boxers as well, officially outnumbering Natasha with people in their underwear in her apartment.

Nat turned to look at him and offered a tired half-smile; something about Clint’s dick made Phil his best self. He seemed relaxed, pleasant in that way that he was once he’d had at least one orgasm wrung out of him, all the uptightness of his day to day demeanor utterly absent. He seemed younger in these moments, a little more like himself – an odd assessment, Natasha had to admit to herself, considering the limited capacity in which she knew him. While she had to admit a little prickle of discomfort at the notion of having an unexpected guest, any previous sleepovers had proven pleasant if uneventful save the sex and there was no reason to make things any weirder for Clint than she was already sure she was doing. Besides, a third party would take the heat off of her long enough that maybe she could find the footing to address this whole “love” business in a way that didn’t terrify the shit out of her.

“No, Phil, stay with us,” she assured, leaning to press a kiss to his cheek, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here, I had a date I couldn’t cancel.”

“No problem at all, sweetness,” he leaned in and gave her a half-hug as best he could with Clint’s arm still firmly around her waist, “I appreciate it. Are you guys hungry? Do you want me to go pick anything up?”

Clint cast a questioning glance at Nat but quickly caught the fatigue in her eyes; she’d nary started to shake her head that he looked back to Phil.

“Nah, man, I think she’s gonna sack out. You wanna go grab pizza?”

Phil looked to Nat as if to double check that this was okay; on one hand, she might have felt slighted at the presumption had it not been right but on the other, it absolutely was and gave her the little bit of time alone she was going to need to weather two other people in the apartment.

“Go eat, guys. I’m done for the night. We can catch up tomorrow, the three of us.”

Accepting this as an answer, Phil nodded before coming over to wrap an arm around her for a closer, more intimate hug than the first. He smelled good, like sweat and sex and one of those standard Calvin Klein colognes, and the familiarity there put her back at ease just as she was starting to get listless. Clint finally let her go, slipping his arm away from her middle to grab the t-shirt that Nat hadn’t noticed was laying on the floor; apparently they’d never made it to the bedroom before the clothes started flying off. Typical.

“You sure you don’t want us to bring you something back?” Phil offered again, trying to be helpful.

“I’m pretty sure that even if you’re holding a pizza, I’ll kill you if you wake me up.”

Clint reached up to ruffle her mussed hair – if he noticed how greasy she was, he didn’t say a word to that effect, bless him – and began looking around the hall, presumably for his pants, “That’s my girl.”

Despite the urge to sleep the sleep of the dead, Natasha managed to drag herself into the shower and was squeaky clean and completely unconscious by the time they returned, leftover pizza and garlic knots in hand just in case.

***

Leaning against the glass counter (roughly four inches away from the DO NOT LEAN sign), Natasha was scrolling through Instagram on her phone as Tony belted “Gloria” from somewhere in the storage room. The surprisingly pleasant (but altogether comedic) sound of his singing was punctuated by the occasional sound of him stomping on a cardboard box or breaking down the plastic displays, losing its rhythm when he’d stop to catch his breath or mutter something angrily when his foot got stuck. On her phone screen, it was the usual parade of food, pets and tits from the usual suspects; Instagram was fun to look into other people’s lives with, but her own profile always felt woefully inadequate. She’d had an uptick in followers and likes when she decided to make it ground zero for the best and the weirdest of the sex shop, a flurry of odd-shaped toys or god-awful porno names (“The Little Spermaid,” Clarendon filter, ‘Her fucking name is Areolae, I’m not even kidding you #brilliance #bestofporn’) but it quickly fell by the wayside when she got reported to the IG police and had her account locked. Now it was just pictures of food and the occasional odd shot of Clint doing something stupid.

“GLORIA!” cried out Tony from the back room, “I think they’ve got your number!”

A bowl of soup from a notoriously expensive bistro on the north side, courtesy of Nick.

“I think they’ve got ELLIOT!”

“It’s ‘the alias’,” Natasha called back, scrolling idly, chin in her free hand.

“That you’ve been living under!” Tony continued louder, not missing a beat.

Phil’s wife’s dogs, Blossom and Buttercup, sleeping in a pile on the rug. Hashtag lazy dogs.

“But you really don’t remember! Was it something that they said, or the voices in your head,” he trailed off for a long beat of silence and for a moment, Natasha was sure he’d finally gotten sidetracked enough to stop.

“…calling GLORIAAAA! GLORIA!”

She smirked and began to hold down the button for video. If nothing else, this might get her some likes.

The main phone began to ring, so close to her head that it was borderline disorienting, like being struck in the ear. Frowning, she shoved her phone back into her pocket and pulled the phone from the receiver, the white curly cord winding around her wrist almost autonomously.

“Salacious, how can I help you?”

“Natasha? Is Wanda.”

The tremor in Wanda’s voice told Natasha that something was wrong immediately. Her coworker sounded shaken to the core, an ice cold bolt shooting straight down Nat’s spine into her gut. Although Tony couldn’t see her in the slightest, she gestured at him to keep quiet reflexively, his singing rousing back up from the far reaches of the storage room. If Wanda heard it, she didn’t act like it.

“Wanda?” Nat quickly asked, standing up, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m going to be late,” was all she managed to creak out before a shuffling sort of sound began, which Nat realized was Wanda trying not to cry into the receiver.

“Don’t worry about that, I don’t have to be anywhere,” Natasha returned in as assuring a voice as she had management of, brow furrowed as she paced behind the counter as best she could with the cord, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“There was an accident,” she was crying in earnest now, culling back little sobs, “The brakes, Pietro hit car in front of us, guy hit us from the side, whole thing was so fast…”

“Is Pietro okay?” Natasha’s eyes cut to the figure of Tony as he rounded the corner, pausing to look at her with marked concern, making her repeat more for his understanding, “Is your brother okay?”

Tony’s eyebrows went up, mouth a little slack, as he came over closer to the counter.

“Yes, yes,” she managed, “We’re at hospital, he has stitches but we’re not harmed badly…”

The accent that Wanda had worked so hard to keep muted in mixed company was back with a vengeance, so thick it took the redhead a second to put the syntax together; she nodded dumbly for a long moment before realizing that, shit, Wanda couldn’t see her nodding.

Despite Tony’s protests that she absolutely did NOT have to come in at all that day, Wanda arrived nearly two hours after her shift was due to begin, eyes puffy from crying and eyeliner smeared accordingly. She was nary in the door when her boss and co-worker had her in the massage chair, coming to sit on either side of her and listen to the entire story with a box of Kleenex on hand. Apparently, Pietro had rear-ended a car ahead of them when the driver broke too hard to avoid another car, the force of the silver bucket pushing both his and the other car into an intersection where they had been t-boned by a (thankfully) slow-moving minivan. Nobody had been seriously injured – the driver ahead of them had a few fractured ribs, Pietro had a laceration or two that had needed stitches, and both Wanda’s eyes were beginning to blacken from the force of the airbag. The adrenaline was wearing off rapidly and she became stiffer by the moment, wincing but otherwise not complaining once until Tony broke out the good painkillers and ordered in dinner from the nice Bistro that Natasha had been eyeing on Instagram earlier. Tony’s efforts to ensure the day wasn’t a total wash were admirable, and Wanda even cracked a smile when he resumed his performance of Gloria as he worked on re-organizing his office for the umpteenth time this quarter.

It was a quiet night which was a mixed blessing – it gave them more time to try to tend to Wanda but no night without sales was a good night – and by eight pm it was abundantly clear that it was going to be a typical Monday night. Tony made the executive decision to close up (“Store closed for personal (read: butt) emergency, will re-open tomorrow at normal time” said the sign) and let them eat in relative peace; he and Natasha could stay and do the inventory they’d been meaning to do for the first California store after she drove Wanda home at his insistence.

“I’m sure you recall I don’t have a car,” Natasha deadpanned, “Do you just want us to grab a cab or-“

Tony tossed her the keys to the Audi, “You’ve got a license, don’t you?”

Natasha stared down at the sleek, modern set of keys in her hand, eyes wide, “…I’ll do twenty five the whole way.”

“Don’t,” Tony responded, closing a filing cabinet, “This is New York, you’ll get run over.”

***

Pulling up outside of a Walgreen’s nearest the apartment Wanda shared with her brother, Natasha was taking every opportunity to prolong living the dream of driving Tony’s gorgeous car across the city. Men and women stared at red lights. People shouted at her from the sidewalk. It was like being a celebrity, and though Natasha’s above-it-all coolness would never have her admit it, she was enjoying playing the part, tossing smoky glances back and making Wanda laugh.

“Here, he sent me pictures,” Wanda fiddled with her phone, one leg already out the door as she pulled up the photos of the wreck to hand over to Natasha, “I’ll be right back.”

The door slammed shut as Nat leaned back in her seat, idling comfortably as she turned Wanda’s Samsung Galaxy to the side to get a clear idea of just how bad the damage was. There was Pietro’s little silver junkbucket, the front end a jagged mess of shattered glass and piercing metal at science-fiction angles. It made Natasha’s gut feel cold again – how had they both gotten out of this wreck with only minor injuries? The goddamn thing looked like it had done battle with a crusher. Swiping right, she pulled up another photo, a head-on shot of the windshield. She could see the deployed airbags hanging limp in the interior and the one on the driver’s side had blood all over it. Natasha had never been in an accident and just the sheer notion of how terrified Wanda must have been, how awful and fast it all must have happened… she swiped right one, two, three more times, each picture of the car seeming worse than the last, until she wasn’t looking at a car anymore.

As a matter of fact, it was so jarring and sudden a switch in subject material that it took her a long moment of staring to realize she was looking at a penis. A very nice penis, at that.

The thing jutted up proudly directly in front of the camera, shot from underneath by either an artful angle by the long-armed subject himself or someone else. Long, thick and from the looks of things uncut – it was one of those maybe-foreskins that made it hard to tell – it was more or less perfect in proportion to the fake UR3 cocks they sold in the store. It was rare that Natasha regarded a dick as beautiful but if there was such a creature, this might be it. Not too red, not too veiny, not to mention the hand wrapped around the base was attractive as well. All in all, an A+ dick pic of what appeared to be an A+ dick.

Natasha smirked. That naughty girl – of course she had a secret dick pic or two hanging around. Maybe this job had ignited the sexual awakening she’d hoped for. Maybe this was the mysterious boyfriend she only obliquely mentioned from time to time, the odd situation she never really discussed.

It would have been only proper to put the goddamn phone down – Wanda was bound to return any moment and they’d be back on the road for the short trip of glory to her apartment – but the day Nat could be accused of being able to resist curiosity of the sexual kind would be a cold one in hell. Casually she flicked to the right one more time and was rewarded with another, only this time a full body shot of a pretty damn ripped young man in bed, the sheet below his balls and his cock resting against his stomach as he grinned up at the camera, well aware it was there.

It was Pietro.

It was Wanda’s brother.

The interior lights jarred her into jumping a little as the door swung back open, Wanda easing back into the seat with a groan of difficulty as her plastic bag of goods rustled into the floorboard. Natasha’s heart was in her throat, her pulse in her ears as giant question marks swirled around her head, but in typical Natasha fashion she kept her cool, swiping quickly back to the car and handing the phone over once Wanda had shut the door.

“Jesus,” she said, her voice just an octave off but undetected by her counterpart, “I’m glad you both got out of that okay, it looks gnarly.”

“Gnarly,” Wanda repeated either out of lack of familiarity or fondness, clicking her seatbelt into place and putting the phone back in her pocket.

If Wanda noticed anything out of place, she never let on. Natasha, for her own part, didn’t say a single word about the pictures, her poker face as unflappable as ever until she had safely deposited the skinny brunette onto her doorstep and watched her go inside.

Safely out of the neighborhood, Natasha took a calm turn into the main road and began screaming “WHAT!?” at the top of her lungs, consumed with one thought:

_Clint’s never gonna believe this shit._

 


	7. Petting The Cat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I know,” Natasha paused before scrunching her face into a slow wince, “…do I have to say something? I mean, can’t I just pretend I don’t know?”_
> 
> _“I dunno,” he offered up, cutting his eyes back up at her, “From what you’ve said, she really seems like she might be trying to reach out to somebody. Imagine how isolating this is for her.”_
> 
> _His persistence in his role as Good Conscience would be the death of Clint one day, but it was one of Natasha’s favorite things about him. She had a tendency to slip into disassociation, some sort of objective, cold stance from which she viewed the world that lacked in the personal touch that Clint seemed to so effortlessly embody. He was chill but warm where she was cool and distant, the two of them facing opposite directions while standing on the same hyper-observant platform. She reminded Clint to be rational. He reminded Natasha to be kind._
> 
> Natasha shares the secret. Chicken wings are eaten. Confessions are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Sometimes I feel like Joseph Fink at the beginning of a WTNV episode up here)
> 
> Two posts from me in one day! It's like Christmas if your idea of Christmas is weird fanfiction!
> 
> First up, big news for the carryovers from I Don't Hear The Church Bells Chime Anymore. That part two that I hinted at? It's happening. It's likely to be shorter and more of a gap-bridger in nature until we get to Infinity Wars (and where I personally believe Pietro will be resurrected but that's just me) but it's going to be a thing that will exist. Watch this space. 
> 
> Related, some Civil War-influenced one-shots are coming soon as well. I'm working on the Marvel/OC piece that was requested, and a Frank Castle reader-insert smut was posted this morning (you're welcome, approx 3 people who wanted that, of which I am one). 
> 
> Finally, Salacious' first sexy, sexy leg will end with Chapter 10 and some big decisions. There will likely be two to three more parts of this story coming, so buckle in, we're only getting started with Natasha. 
> 
> Thank you as usual to everyone who pops in, reads, leaves kudos and especially to those who comment. Y'all make my day more often than not and it's lovely to be reminded that I'm not just typing all of this into the void, that it resounds with someone. Everybody has had such kind things to say and I'm grateful for all of you. 
> 
> That said, let's get this party started. Oh, and please feel free to leave me your favorite masturbation euphemisms in the comments. I'm running out of chapter titles.

“Are you fucking serious?”

It took a lot to shock Clint and even more than that to get him to register it on his usually predictably blank face. However, the second Natasha had finally quit pacing around the build up to the big reveal (“There is no clever set up for this but Wanda’s phone has pictures /of her brother’s dick/ on it”), he’d done a literal spit take, a dribble of beer down the front of his gray sweater. For a moment, Nat wasn’t certain she wouldn’t have to give him CPR there on the floor of the Ale House but he managed to sputter out a cough, bringing his fist hard against his sternum until his eyes were watering but he was breathing steadily again. Nat wondered how she’d explain to his brother that Clint had choked to death because she decided to tell him that her coworker was having sex with her twin brother at an inopportune time.

Completely unbidden, the memory came flashing back at her of Barney sitting drunk on some stoop, confessing to her that he was afraid to answer unknown numbers on his cell because every time it could be someone calling from the desert to tell him Clint had been killed. She forced the memory away just as quick as it came, before it could hollow out her stomach.

“Okay, okay,” Clint put his hands up and tapped on both of the little plastic nuggets in his ears, “Am I gonna have to get my aids checked or did you seriously” – at this point, both hands were flat on the table as he leaned forward, clearly just as enthralled and horrified as Natasha herself was by this huge, taboo thing – “ _seriously_ just tell me that your coworker is fucking her own brother?”

“Her _twin_ brother,” Natasha responded through what was almost a grin.

What was it about this that was provoking some deep sense of excitement? Nat was never the type to pass a lot of judgment about what consenting adults wanted to do but she had to admit to some degree of being squicked, the topic of incest so naturally taboo that it felt like she was peeking through a curtain into something totally forbidden and novel. How many times had she ever encountered this? Did this sort of thing really still happen anywhere but maybe Appalachia? The sheer spectacle of the notion was so intriguing and yet kind of repulsive, the same sacred-profanity tandem of looking at a dead body. She hadn’t yet considered at what point her right to marvel would end and Wanda’s rights as a person would be back at the forefront of her mind. For now, it was enough for her and Clint to have this huge revelation to bat back in forth with morbid fascination.

…had she just compared Wanda’s possible relationship to a dead body?

“Jesus Christ,” Clint scrubbed a hand over his mouth, cupping his jaw as if pondering life’s big mysteries and leaning back into the booth to stare across at her, “Well… of all the things I wasn’t expecting you to tell me when you said to meet you at the Ale House.”

“Were you scared I was pregnant?” Nat deadpanned, knocking back another swig of her beer as Clint laughed and shook his head.

“Scared? Nah,” Clint gave her that lopsided smirk that had made her chest knot up from Night One, “I just can’t say I expected an incest twist in the story.”

“I can’t believe I _didn’t_ suspect it, to be honest,” Natasha offered in genuine defeat, gesturing widely with her hands and beer, “I mean it makes perfect sense if you think about it. She’s got this relationship she’s really vague and secretive about, her brother comes in and I mistake him for a gross, flirty customer because of how he’s looking at her and leaning on the counter, she makes all these references to being ‘unconventional’. I should have known. I should have fucking known.”

“Oh yeah, because it’s such a commonplace jump? ‘Oh, her boyfriend situation seems weird, she must be _fucking her brother_.’”

Nat shook her head, pulling from the bottle again, going off in thought for a long pause, “…goddamn.”

The waitress brought over the plate of wings and cheese fries, but Natasha didn’t so much as make a move on them, eyes on the middle distance of nothing as she began to consider exactly how weird this entire situation was.

Picking up a wing, Clint hissed out a “fuck” and shook his hand in the air to wear off the smarting of hot grease against his skin as the chicken dropped back to the plate, “Sweet fuck all, that’s hot. Jesus.”

Natasha finally cut her eyes back up at him to watch him gracelessly suck the sauce from his thumb before shoving it into his ice water that had thus far been untouched.

“So what are you gonna do?” he queried, eyes scanning her face for some thread to pull on of what exactly she was thinking, feeling, “I mean, it’s not like she’s doing something horrible, it’s not really a situation that calls for confrontation.”

The immediate response was “isn’t she?”, but Nat caught it on her tongue and forced it to die between her teeth while she checked herself. He was right – all signs pointed to consensual, there was no indication she was being victimized. Still, it merited a wellness check. To assuage her fears of catching herself being so judgmental, Natasha reminded herself that the sort of wellness check she was thinking of was standard issue where it came to her friends. How do you feel about him? Is he nice to you? Are you being made to do anything you don’t want to do?

“I know,” Natasha paused before scrunching her face into a slow wince, “…do I have to say something? I mean, can’t I just pretend I don’t know?”

Clint shrugged, starting to pull the wing apart despite that he was still having to snatch his fingers away every few seconds, completely unthwartable in his quest for this goddamn chicken.

“I dunno,” he offered up, cutting his eyes back up at her, “From what you’ve said, she really seems like she might be trying to reach out to somebody. Imagine how isolating this is for her.”

His persistence in his role as Good Conscience would be the death of Clint one day, but it was one of Natasha’s favorite things about him. She had a tendency to slip into disassociation, some sort of objective, cold stance from which she viewed the world that lacked in the personal touch that Clint seemed to so effortlessly embody. He was chill but warm where she was cool and distant, the two of them facing opposite directions while standing on the same hyper-observant platform. She reminded Clint to be rational. He reminded Natasha to be kind.

How many times was she going to realize how stupidly in love with him she was in a booth at the Ale House before she finally spat it out?

“Nat?”

Natasha came crashing back into reality as she stared across at Clint, who was looking at her expectantly.

“Sorry, sorry,” she offered, shaking her head and picking at a fry, “I was just processing what you said.”

“I’m just saying, Nat, she’s your friend. You guys made pretty fast friends, actually. Wouldn’t you want to have at least one person you could talk to about something that you knew most people would shun you for?”

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she repeated that sentiment to herself while watching Clint dunk his wing into the ranch cup. Finally, she sat down her bottle and raked both hands through her messy hair, coming to rest her elbows back on the edge of the table.

“I guess I just got caught up in how shocking it is. Like can you believe this? Was this at all what you’d have imagined?”

Clint chuckled and shook his head, raising his eyebrows at her as he gnawed away on his wing, finally working around the heat to get some of it eaten.

“Not in the least,” he said around sucking the sauce off his fingertips, “I was wondering if she was involved in trafficking or something, though that might be an unfair assumption. Really this is one of the least awful things that could have been happening to her, as long as it’s what she wants.”

“Just…” she gestured emptily, trying to find the right way to convey what she was saying and as usual having to settle for the plainest terms, “How does that even happen? How do you decide you’re going to go against some of the most goalpost societal norms and have sex with a blood relative? With a twin blood relative no less?”

“Well,” Clint offered dryly, “With twins, if they were identical it kind of opens up the ol’ cloning chestnut about if it’s incest or if it’s masturbation.”

“Fuck you,” Natasha snickered, draining out the rest of her beer.

“Regardless, I’d imagine it’s a lot like being queer in that respect,” Clint shrugged, fishing out another wing, “Maybe it’s not a choice at all.”

Nat’s lips curved into a smirk and she pointed at him around her amber bottle, “If I were more argumentative with you, I’d point out that as a queer person, I don’t like the comparison of a perfectly healthy queer relationship to incest.”

“I’m not comparing the two,” Clint countered with nary a trace of aggression, just observation, “And not all incest is nonconsensual. Can’t say I’ve done the research but I would imagine the vast majority of it is abusive, but that doesn’t mean consensual incestuous relationships don’t exist.”

“And the dynamics that would lead to one? Would you condone someone having a sexual relationship with their own father?”

Clint winced, looking over at her, “…yeah, that would make me uncomfortable. I don’t know if the dynamics between a parent and child can ever be equal enough for there to not be some element of imbalance there, you know? And as for condoning it, Nat, I don’t really think it’s my place to condone or condemn anything grown ups do until they start hurting each other.”

Nat nodded, chewing on cheese fries as she contemplated his point. He kept going, obviously having a lot of thoughts on the subject.

“And before you even bring it up, yes, I agree that in different circumstances this could absolutely constitute ‘hurting each other’. Just… I dunno, maybe try _not_ to approach her like you think she’s being victimized? That’s probably not going to do anything but make her defensive. That’s all I’m saying.”

“You’ve considered this point a lot, haven’t you?”

It was meant as a joke but the look on Clint’s face took the smirk off of her own. He shrugged, poking around a wing that he had doused with more ranch.

“I had a friend who was sexually attracted to his adoptive brother. I mean…it would have really hurt the family if he had acted on it, his brother didn’t want any part of it, but at the very least it helped him come to terms with being gay. It was just kind of messy and sad the whole way around.”

It took Natasha a moment to respond, face softened by the notion, “Oh man. That must have really fucked with him when he grew up.”

“We’ll never know,” Clint sounded as close to bitter as Clint ever got, knocking back the rest of his beer, “He killed himself years ago.”

Her breath caught in her throat as she stared across at him, “…oh fuck, Clint, I’m sorry.”

His shrug was a quiet death knell on that portion of the conversation. Shifting in his spot, Clint raised that assessing gaze back at her and knocked out the last of his own beer.

“All I’m saying is that she’s probably asking herself enough of those qualifier questions. Maybe she needs one impartial person in her life to just listen.”

The silence that passed between them wasn’t awkward or tense, just long. Clint pondered if he’d made his point succinctly enough without making Natasha feel like he was attacking her. Natasha wondered if she’d come off like a judgmental asshole, her own inner critic assuring her that yes, as usual she probably had.

“So tell me the truth…” Clint began.

A pit of dread sunk into Natasha’s stomach until that goddamn smirk spread across his lips.

“How nice was his dick?”

“Gorgeous,” Natasha spat back without thinking.

***

Tony paced back and forth in the center of the store, one hand on the cell phone held aloft to his ear and the other pinching the bridge of his nose below his designer sunglasses.

“Yes, I know we have a slower connection here than we do across town, that’s not the point _Eric_ ,” he condescended, “The point is your _yahoos_ with the cable company have half of my ceiling down and all my electrical wiring pulled out of the walls and now, _only now_ , they’re telling me we aren’t equipped for the kind of connection that I bought from you people three days ago.”

The chirp-chirp of the new handheld scanners was almost pleasing to the ear. Though she’d been sullen since she arrived fifteen minutes earlier to find all of the guts of the building pulled out onto the carpet while Tony waged passive-aggressive war on the customer service rep for whatever company had been fool enough to do the fell deed, the sound was somewhat soothing to Wanda as she picked up another plastic-cased jelly dong and scanned the barcode. The notion of having to learn a new system had made her nervous but it helped when Nat had assured her she wouldn’t be alone (“I’ve been with this company for years and this is the most high tech we’ve ever gotten – if you fuck it up, I promise, I’ll be fucking it up too”) it had assuaged most of her fears. The shuffling of Natasha across the room, crouched down to pull from the lower shelves, and the near rhythmic chirping were kind of soothing.

Chirp-chirp. Shuffle, shuffle. Chirp-chirp. Silence. Shuffle.

Natasha pulled up her faux leather leggings when she stood up, the elastic starting to loosen. Perhaps it was time to go in on those Black Milk ones after all.

“Hey have you seen the Ben-Wa balls?”

Wanda pointed a burgundy painted finger at the rack on the far corner, “Is glass ones, too.”

“Thanks,” Nat hopped over a small stack of riding crops in plastic bags and began to shuffle the smaller packing envelopes around.

If anything, she’d been incredibly grateful for having so much to do. It kept her from lingering on how exactly she was going to bring up the conversation about Wanda and Pietro, something she hadn’t exactly found the smoothest entry point into. _Hi Wanda, how’s your brother’s dick?_ might have given her a temporary chuckle (and subsequent guilt for laughing) but there was nothing resembling a serious battle plan by the time she’d come to work on an overlapping shift. Late night googling had produced an interesting article about a German brother and sister petitioning for the right to marry one another if they agreed not to have children but the absolute slaughterhouse that was the comments only provided her with more ambivalence than she already had. The crisis in the main room was a headache to be sure but Tony had it under control, leaving them with the task of loading up the entire store’s inventory onto the scanners so it could be docked onto the computers when they arrived.

Ah, technology.

As Nat double checked the packages for any openings and set about scanning, she rehearsed her lines in her head.

_So I was fucking around on the internet last night and I saw this article about German siblings who-_

“ _No_ , don’t you fucking put me on hold, don’t you do it ERIC I SAID - … goddammit!”

Tony stomped into the empty boxes like Godzilla taking Tokyo, kicking one across the room.

“Motherfuckers,” he growled, shoving his phone back into his pocket and glancing around, “How’s it going in here?”

“Fine, these things are actually pretty easy to get the hang of,” Nat responded through the strain of reaching for a barcoded item on the high shelf.

Wanda didn’t respond, nodding and scanning another bottle of Gun Oil anal lube. Chirp-chirp.

The long silence let Tony know he wasn’t needed (which at this point was a relief) and he put his hands on his hips, “Alright, I’m gonna get the hell out of this building and go grab lunch, anybody want to come with?”

Nat and Wanda both turned to look at each other for guidance on the answer, meeting the other with shrugs.

The ride in the Audi was a pleasant throwback to feeling like a B-O-S-S only a few days before. It also served as a highlighter to the discovery that was hanging heavy in Natasha’s mind. By the time they were seated near the sushi bar (and by the largest window with a nice view of the koi pond, naturally, because Stark LLC money talks) and Tony had walked away to take yet another call from the cable team, she had hit her threshold of what she could handle. Without thinking, without pausing to mince her words, Natasha turned to Wanda and blessedly spat out the best thing she could have said.

“Hey, I don’t know what’s been going on, but you seem like you’ve had a lot on your mind,” Nat bent her head to try to catch Wanda’s gaze, which she managed to do with surprising empathy, “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, but you know you can talk to me, right? You can tell me anything, I’m not here to judge you.”

Wanda stared back at her like a kohl-rimmed deer in the headlights. For a moment, Natasha was convinced that she knew that _she_ knew. Fuck. The stare was interrupted by the waiter bringing their drinks – Dr. Pepper for Nat, Coke for Wanda, seltzer for Tony and sake for the whole table because fuck today. Wanda broke the gaze and cut her eyes back to the table, hands going to her lap as though she were somehow trying to make herself smaller. The gesture made Nat want to reach out and touch her, stroke her hair or hold her hand or something, anything to drive home the point that she wasn’t alone.

Of course Clint had been right about everything. Of course she felt like shit about all the gossipy speculation they’d shared the night she found out about Wanda and Pietro. Of course now, sitting here and looking at her friend, she remembered there was more to it than ideas.

“I…” Wanda began, eyes darting back to Nat experimentally but quickly shooting back to the napkins.

Natasha was practically on the edge of her seat but kept her cool, even countenance, legs crossed as she idly swirled her straw around her drink like she hardly had a care in the world. This was it. Wanda was clearly trying to verbalize it. Nat could see her shifting the weight of her secret around, trying to see if she was ready and able to drop it just yet at the exact moment that Tony came back to the table and dropped into his seat, cursing a blue streak at nothing before turning to the waiter to order in flawless Japanese. Nat sighed and sipped her drink.

***

It happened on the back steps leading to the alleyway behind the store. Tony was inside threatening legal action, the front door locked and all systems shut down as the store could hardly function without electricity while Natasha and Wanda broke down and threw the empty boxes into the recycling receptacle. It was a few minutes of tense silence, Nat focusing on the task at hand instead of looking at her coworker until she heard her begin to cry. All production stopped.

This wasn’t Nat’s strong suit. Nobody called her when they needed a hug – Natasha was a point of reference for people who wanted perspective on how bad it could really be in the grand scheme. Nat could calm someone down with flying colors, but comfort was never high on the list of things she felt good at.

When she looked across at Wanda, watching as she put her thin, pale hand over her mouth and choked back a sob, there wasn’t much else to think about. Nat walked over and folded Wanda into her arms, feeling the heaving of her bird-lithe shoulders. It took Wanda a moment to respond, compliant enough with being hugged but not exactly hugging back until the floodgates open and she sobbed into Nat’s red shirt.

They sat on the steps when the crying subsided, and Wanda told her everything. It had always been there, it hadn’t become sexual until a few years after their parents had died in the bombings, how they were moved from refugee center to refugee center and spent a little time in a commune until they were able to get visas to get the hell out of the country. How the only boy she ever remembered wanting to kiss was Pietro. How he’d had so many girls chase him but he was steadfast in his interest being only in her. How they’d never even talked about it the night they finally kissed – it just happened. It was pretty clear that this had been something they both wanted and while Wanda was caught in a maelstrom of guilt and shame, she was in love with him.

She said she lost so much sleep over how no one would understand or accept them. There was no one here _to_ understand or accept them, but she kept thinking about their dead parents and how ashamed she thought they’d be.

Wanda didn’t always know the right words for what she was trying to say – most notably, losing their virginity to one another was “giving themselves” to one another, which Natasha might have rolled her eyes at if an American had said it but coming from that Sokovian accent it was almost poetic – but she seemed to know what she wanted to say. The entire time she spoke, all Natasha could think about was how awfully hard this must have been on a teenage girl with no one to turn to, nobody to help her sort out her own feelings.

Wanda seemed genuinely surprised that Natasha wasn’t shocked. Deciding that sparing her was a better option here, Natasha only shrugged casually, keeping her usual placid demeanor but a little more on the warm side.

“I kind of figured. I mean, the way he looks at you kind of told me something.”

Wiping her eyes with her sleeve, Wanda sniffled, her voice hoarse, “He wanted us to tell people we were boyfriend and girlfriend when we came over, or that we could get married and say we were married there. We could just fake it here, nobody would know.”

Knowing full well it wasn’t the time or the place, Natasha bit back the urge to ask her why she didn’t just do that. It seemed like a perfectly good, easy answer to a very complicated situation.

As if sensing the question, Wanda cut her bleary, pinkened eyes over at Natasha.

“He’s still my brother. I love him as such. I just… love him more than that, too.”

Nat didn’t offer a response. There really wasn’t much else to say. Instead, she reached over and rested an arm around Wanda’s shoulders, holding her quietly as the brunette sunk down to rest her exhausted head on Natasha’s faux-leathered knee.

They listened to the street traffic, to Tony’s muffled anger behind the door. The listened to a plane passing overhead. They listened to their own breathing.

No one said a word for a long time, until Wanda sniffled and reached down, poking at what felt alarmingly like bare flesh on Nat’s calf.

“Your leggings are tearing.”

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Checking The Undercarriage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It was one of those idyllic spring days in New York City. The cold front had finally broken enough that a light jacket could keep you comfortable through the day, the buds were beginning to break out along branches, even the smell in the air had changed, somehow lighter than before but not quite as permeating as it would be once the heat started baking everything concrete when summer came. It was a pleasant seventy two degrees – almost unseasonably warm – and everybody wanted to be outside. Allergy sufferers flocked to the drugstores to stock up on Zyrtec or to their doctors for antihistamine shots. Landlords sent out vaguely threatening missives about raising rent. At least four major celebrity couples split up. Spring was finally beginning._
> 
>  
> 
> _It was Natasha’s day off. Between the impending expansion onto the west coast, training Wanda and Clint being in town more often than not she couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a day to herself. Some people might have felt lonely spending an entire day alone – Natasha craved it. The idea of taking herself out on a date with the city set a smile on her face._
> 
> Natasha's Big Day Off proves eventful with a big offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi kids - we're in the home stretch now. 
> 
> The chapters will be coming a little faster now that we're winding down and a few other projects are in the works (I've seen Civil War, all sortsa ideas now), but The Salacious Saga will officially be a four part story and part 2 will be coming along a month or two after the closure of part 1. 
> 
> As always, thanks so much to everyone who takes the time to comment and leave kudos - I cannot tell you how lovely it is to read them.

Natasha was giving a dream blowjob to a busboy who had spilled a drink on her years ago when the chirping of her iPhone pierced through the veil and woke her. Eyes bleary and hair a big red cockatiel coif, she pulled her face out of her pillow and sat up onto her elbows, smacking her lips and noting her breath could kill a goat this morning. The screen of her iPhone lit up brightly in the not-quite-dawn of the early hours, everything in her apartment cast in gray. Clint was long gone if the empty and cool side of the bed was any indication, off to work. She had the place to herself, it was her day off, and someone was calling her before six am. _Of fucking course_. She reached over with the grace of an octopus falling out of a tree and grabbed the phone.

Tony. _Also, of fucking course_.

_Facetime_? She glowered at the screen and hit accept, hoping he’d get one look at her and remember what the hour was.

Instead, she was greeted with loud audio feedback, something like the breeze passing over his phone’s mic, with muttering in the background as she stared at a small, beautiful building all lit up with halogen lights against the dark night sky. They were bluish white, very pretty in all that dark, beams running along the glass exterior that looked more like modern deco-art than …what was this thing, anyway? A bank? Where the fuck was he?

The camera whipped around into Tony’s giant grin. He whipped off his glasses in that overdramatic way he often did and looked into the phone like he was about to give a speech of great importance before he paused, squinted and then broke into a laugh.

“WOW, good morning Miss America,” he cackled, muffled only a little by the ambient noise, “I guess I forgot it was so early there. It’s still like two am here. I’m still going.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes and tried to smart off, hoarse voice breaking as soon as she was barely a syllable in. Clearing her throat, she tried again.

“The fuck, Tony? Where are you?”

“California, duncecap! Where else is four hours behind you?”

“Tony…” she croaked, “… _why_ are you in California again?”

Raising his eyebrows coyly, Tony batted his lashes into the camera before whipping it around again to show the building, “Because I just signed on this baby.”

It shone against the night like some sort of beacon. Apparently, it would soon be a beacon of dildos.

“Say hello to Salacious, California!”

“Hello, beautiful,” Natasha admired through a grin, “Congratulations on the new baby.”

“Congratulations to _you_ ,” Tony added from behind the lens, sighing with satisfaction as he too looked at the future of his business, “It’s your baby, too.”

***

It was one of those idyllic spring days in New York City. The cold front had finally broken enough that a light jacket could keep you comfortable through the day, the buds were beginning to break out along branches, even the smell in the air had changed, somehow lighter than before but not quite as permeating as it would be once the heat started baking everything concrete when summer came. It was a pleasant seventy two degrees – almost unseasonably warm – and everybody wanted to be outside. Allergy sufferers flocked to the drugstores to stock up on Zyrtec or to their doctors for antihistamine shots. Landlords sent out vaguely threatening missives about raising rent. At least four major celebrity couples split up. Spring was finally beginning.

It was Natasha’s day off. Between the impending expansion onto the west coast, training Wanda and Clint being in town more often than not she couldn’t recall the last time she’d had a day to herself. Some people might have felt lonely spending an entire day alone – Natasha craved it. The idea of taking herself out on a date with the city set a smile on her face from the minute she crawled out of bed and to the shower. She hadn’t even minded making her bed and putting away the erstwhile shoes littering the hall, though it was still a hard moment to finally toss her poor fake leather leggings into the trash, accepting their fate and reminding herself that, _no, Natasha, the thrift store does not want your hole-laden leggings_.

Digging out her most comfortable, worn-in pair of black skinnies, she pondered her entire wardrobe. She had a set palette, no doubt – red, blacks, the odd bit of brown leather, but nothing exceptionally experimental. She owned maybe two dresses, one for special occasions where she could have her tits out and one for special occasions where she couldn’t. Maybe it was time to expand out, define a better idea of personal style. Reminding herself that 30 was coming up fast – October in fact – so there was a long list of shit to get accomplished before she could reckon herself ready to face Decade No 3. Maybe she’d make a concerted effort to use more of what little makeup she had. Hell, maybe she’d trade up her Revlon for MAC or something. She had a Pinterest account with one board – Food – with three pins on it, so maybe she’d start using that too. Not for cooking – Christ, no – just to pin things she wanted to eat if she saw them anywhere purchasable.

But for today, there was only one big thing on the agenda, and that was to spend some time with Number One. She pulled on her old Joey Ramone tee – a handover remnant from College Boyfriend Matt Murdock – and a light jacket, tugging on her boots in the hallway. Headphones and her iPhone, rubber band of cards and cash in one pocket and her favorite necklace and she was good to go, feeling ready to embrace a full day of Natasha-only care. She snagged her keys off the table in the foyer, locked up behind herself, queued up the Dessa and stepped out into the flow of the city, immediately getting caught into the sweep of sidewalk traffic.

Shoving her hands down into her pockets, Nat trotted across the first crosswalk and moved down an adjacent street, slowing her pace to something just short of hurried as she made her way towards East Village. The Bean might have been hipster-hell central at the wrong times of day and it was definitely more expensive than Starbucks, but the entire point of today was doing all the little shit she liked and didn’t get to do during the work week. The line wasn’t unbearable and offered some prime people watching; the couple with a dog whose mere presence was clearly pissing off the curmudgeon at the next table. The performance artist with her living statue costume slung over one arm, a case of body paint next to her latte cup, caffeinating before a long day of staying perfectly, admirably still. A couple in the far corner were arguing as passive-aggressively as they could in public; heat lines of anger were practically radiating off of her asymmetrical haircut and he purposely pulled his Ray Bans back to keep anyone from seeing that he was crying. The young woman behind her in line sang softly to herself in Spanish. It was New York City. Anybody was here. For the first time in what felt like weeks, Natasha’s internal dialogue shut itself off and she could simply be, watching and listening and letting all of it pass through her like a sieve.

No grappling with the blossoming feeling in her chest whenever she thought of Clint. No worrying about Maria being shot at the clinic. No big questions that needed answers before another birthday sent her out of the appropriate time to be asking. No grand opening of a store across the country. Instead, there was a long walk with a black coffee and a dulche de leche donut as she took in the scenery, the sights, her soundtrack of choice pumping in her ears as the solitude among multitudes began to recharge her batteries.

She passed a row of little plant shops, idling long enough to eyeball the new displays of apparently trendy succulents, pondering if she was mature enough to take care of a plant. They looked so pretty and almost soft with their thick, waxy leaves that she gave it serious thought, sucking the icing off her thumb and wadding the napkin up to shove into her jacket pocket. They were cacti, right? How hard could it be to not murder a cactus via neglect? Besides, Clint always said there needed to be more living things in the apartment than just the two of them.

_No_ , she caught herself, _Not right now. Not today._ Besides, wasn’t that his cute way of suggesting a cat or something?

Forcing herself to turn away from the plants and by proxy her dilemma, Natasha swigged down the last of her coffee and went along in search of a trash can.

***

An hour and a half of browsing in her favorite bookstore later, she had picked up a secondhand copy of The Idiot for herself – one of her favorites but she barely keeps more than a few books at a time, often in flux of being borrowed or lent – and a copy of The Botany of Desire for Maria. The overstuffed and worn-in chairs in the back smelled a bit like foot and ass but were typically most comfortable spot to sit and peruse; however, today was inordinately busy, so she only spent as much time as was necessary to go through her stack and whittle it down to just the two. It’s a short walk from the bookstore to the nearest park and while it’s hardly one of the most majestic the city has to offer, it’s still someplace green to sit and read a book. Most people would bring a blanket or a towel to sit on but Nat wasn’t precious about grass, looking only to make sure she wasn’t laying in dog shit before flopping down to crack open the onion-skin delicate pages and trace her fingers along the lines as she re-embarked on a trip down a familiar path. Maybe re-reading books was a waste of time for some but she loved the second, third, fourth trips down the narrative, always finding something to notice that she had never spotted before.

A little time passed pleasantly but it wasn’t terribly long before a restlessness that was quickly becoming familiar had her distracted. Sounds she would normally tune out while reading were permeating the bubble, making Nat glance up and lose her spot and often her will to continue. After the third time she sighed and closed the book, slipping it back into the bag with Maria’s, and sat up. It was barely early afternoon, the day was still young yet, and there were a thousand things to do in this city. Maybe that was the problem. Analysis paralysis. Too many choices makes making one exponentially harder.

There was the toy store if she felt like eyeballing the walls and walls of Pops – meh – or the theater if it was still open – nope, nevermind, closed last year – and Webster Hall was there but pretty much useless in the broad light of day. Frankly, more sugar sounded like a good idea but the only thing she could think of was ice cr-

Nat sat up like a bolt had hit her. Finally. Something all encompassing enough to get her out of her own head and firmly in the now. The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop.

***

Sitting out front with her tang-creamsicle shake in hand, Natasha finally took a few deep breaths and blissfully outran the hurricane for but a few blessed moments. Delicious. Nat didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her childhood but creamsicle, be it smell or taste, always took her back to her youth, a moment where the biggest deal in her life was whether or not she could run faster than all the boys in her class. She could. The memory of first place in gym presidentials put a smirk on her face as she watched some kids across the street playing hopscotch. Kids still did that?

Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she had herself half-convinced not to even bother looking at it when she sighed and acquiesced, fishing it out. Tony again. At least it wasn’t face time this time.

“Hey.”

“You busy?”

Nat took a long sip of her milkshake in lieu of an answer.

“I know, I know, it’s your day off, but I’d really love to get your opinion on a few things,” Tony opined, the light shuffling of paperwork in the background, “I’m just putting together the stats and logistics for opening the new store and I could use some-…”

The pause furrowed Natasha’s brow and she sighed, resigned, “What, Tony?”

“No, kid, you know what? Don’t worry about it today.”

Tony sounded…sympathetic? Sorry, even? Natasha raised an eyebrow at no one as he continued, expression softening as he spoke.

“You’ve been busting your ass for me and helping run this place just as much as I have, Nat. I’m sorry I lean on you so much for this sort of thing, you deserve more time off than you get.”

“I love my job,” Natasha responded, half uncertain if maybe she hadn’t said it in fear that he was about to dock her hours or something, “Is everything alright? What’s wrong?”

He chuckled and though it sounded tired, it wasn’t mirthless, “Nothing’s wrong, buddy. I promise. I just kind of realized I need to lay off of you a little bit when you’re out of office so you can actually enjoy an afternoon to yourself.”

Natasha smiled a little. There were probably a thousand ways she could tell her boss how grateful she was for him but at the moment, she only had the one.

“You sure? I’m at the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, you could always come meet me.”

There was a long pause.

“Tony?”

“I’m only gonna give you one chance to take that back and enjoy your day by yourself before I come down there and kill a horchata shake.”

“Then get down here,” Nat responded, and found that much to her surprise, she was genuinely glad for the company.

***

“So,” Tony began, sunglasses on and legs crossed as he and Natasha sat under an umbrella-table with their shakes (hers replenished because “If you’re going to infringe on my day off, you’re gonna buy me another milkshake”), “What’s been going on with Wanda lately?”

Nat almost choked on her shake – really, this was entirely too much, there was no way she was going to finish a second one without making herself sick – but recovered as smoothly as possible. There were two options here – lie to Tony and say she didn’t know, or tell him the truth. Granted, the truth was incredibly personal and not hers to tell, so that was out but so was lying to him; their relationship worked on a basis of mutual honesty and respect. So, she took the highest road possible.

“It’s been a personal thing. I wish I could tell you about it but it’s not mine to share.”

Tony snapped his fingers, smirking at her, “Rats! I bet it’s a good one, too, if it’s got you so button lipped about it.”

Nat raised her eyebrows, chuffing out a half-laugh, “Oh, Tony. Trust me. Whatever you think it is, you’re nowhere near close.”

“I’ll figure it out eventually,” he said coolly, utterly self-assured that he would, “But back to _you_ , lil’ missy. Your work performance is strong as ever but you’ve just seemed a little…”

Tony gestured abstractly.

“…off.”

“I’ve been having a weird couple weeks,” Nat confessed, straw back in her mouth as a subconscious effort to stop talking.

Tony raised his eyebrows, pausing as if waiting for her to continue. Natasha took another ill-advised slug and shook her head, trying to find the right way to articulate it without spitting out all the shit she wasn’t ready to hear herself say out loud. Maybe it was time, but she wasn’t sure it was something she could just do.

Tony sighed, knowing when he was cornered and took a sip of his milkshake.

“I’m not gonna push, you know me better than that. It’s just that the two employees I spend the most time with seem to be having a rough time, and it sucks to feel helpless about it.”

“I appreciate that,” Nat responded genuinely, raking her hair back from her face, “I’m just trying to figure some stuff, it’ll work itself out. It’s got nothing to do with you or work.”

“Well that’s a relief,” Tony conceded, shifting to re-cross his legs in that particularly feminine way he often did, “Which brings me to the only little bit of work I’m gonna force onto your big day out, if you’re permissible.”

The groan she let out as she thunked her head to the table was a joke and half born out of relief that the subject would get summarily changed. Surely with the California expansion rapidly approaching, there was a lot to talk about anyway. Moving to put her chin in her elbow, she mirrored the raised brow and waited for whatever he had coming.

“As you know, Wanda was supposed to be taking over the store across town as manager, and she will, depending on your choice,” Tony picked up a napkin and wiped the condensation off his cup, pausing for the dramatic effect before continuing, “But I want you to go to California.”

This wasn’t entirely unexpected. Natasha had long since figured she’d be spending some time at the west coast store to help it get up and running, and even if she hadn’t gotten an offer she’d have at least tried to angle a vacation out of the matter. Nodding, Nat considered that maybe two weeks away from Clint and the whole situation would make it come back into clear focus. She tried to ignore the sick feeling at the idea of spending two weeks away from Clint. It had to be the excessive milkshake drinking – she wasn’t a girl who pined for anyone, and she was even less a girl who turned down good work opportunities for romantic relationships.

“No,” Tony slipped his sunglasses up onto his head, the eye contact driving home how serious he was, “I want you to come to California to be the west coast regional manager and co-run the store with me.”

Natasha started to respond but the moment her lips parted she stalled, freezing there for a long moment. She had been regional manager of the New York stores, but co-running the store? What in the hell did he mean by co-running the store? Wasn’t she doing that already?

Her voice broke only slightly but still betrayed her usual monotone, “You’re asking me to move to California?”

“I’m asking you to get the store launched and running. Six months, maybe a year depending. But I want to list you as the west coast regional manager, as well as name you VP of Salacious, Stark LLC.”

A bee could have flown into her mouth and she wouldn’t have budged or closed it. Nat’s heart stammered in her chest in…what was this, exactly? Fear? Excitement? Both? The sheer immensity of what a change it would be seemed glacier-huge, daunting even to consider until she had all the details. Shaking her head only to snap herself back into the moment, Nat laid both hands flat on the table.

“You want me to move to California for six months,” Nat said slowly, tilting her chin down and arching a brow, “And you want me to be VP of the company?”

“Yep,” Tony responded without a single hint of doubt, “That’s what I want. Maybe a year, remember that.”

Natasha just sat there, looking down at her dry cuticles while her gears turned and she tried to process what he was suggesting. He continued like it was any other business meeting, chipper but focused.

“Obviously there’s a lot of strings here that would need sorting out, a lot of paperwork to be signed and legal documents to be amended, but we can start with the term in California. I’ll be coming back and forth – a month here, a month there, maybe even shorter terms depending on where I’m needed, but we’d need to tag team the new store to get it going. Ordering supplies, setting up accounts, hiring and training staff, so much to get done before we can bust into the grand opening. I need my ace in the hole if I want this done quick and right.”

“And Wanda?” Nat asked, the bigger picture getting that much clearer.

“She becomes manager of the store while you’re on the opposite coast and I’m in and out,” Tony answered, purposefully casual as though the second half of the statement wasn’t loaded, “And if you decide you want to stay in California as west coast regional, she becomes regional manager of the New York stores, maybe eventually the east coast.”

“So Wanda’s potential promotion is riding on my decision,” Natasha countered, finally finding her pace in the conversation now that the initial shock was wearing off.

Tony smirked and chewed on his straw, “Well, if you’re gonna be VP of my company, there’s going to be a lot of that.”

A verbal sparring match was more familiar territory than this, so it’s where Natasha chose to go static, pointing at him across the table. It took a moment for her to realize that, despite going into the combat stance, she was smiling.

“So, just to make sure I’m fully understanding this: you want me to become VP of the company, _if_ I decide to go handle the California expansion? What happens if I decide I want to stay in New York?”

Tony pulled a face that was almost a frown and took a moment to consider the point, “To be perfectly honest, Romanoff, I hadn’t really thought much about that. I think I just kind of assumed you’d say yes.”

“But I have a life here,” Natasha gestured at the city as though it were this alleged life in and of itself, “I’m… fuck, I’m such a New Yorker, how would I survive in California being this much of a New Yorker?”

“By coming back to New York as frequently as you wanted once things are in swing. I mean, you always could double-time it, spend two weeks there and two weeks here, but I’m afraid that would cut pretty significantly into the momentum of getting the store ready.”

Nat nodded – he wasn’t wrong, that would fuck up her flow – and tapped her nails against the side of the cup, “Right, yeah, I couldn’t do that.”

Sipping down the last of his shake, Tony sat the cup on the table and leaned forward to look at her levelly, “Nat, I don’t want you to take this if you’re not certain that you want it.”

Natasha bit the inside of her cheek and suppressed the urge to tell him that she was never fucking sure what she wanted, not ever, not in anything. How could she be sure now?

“If you decide to stay here, you can still come out for two weeks, get a tan, help me do the recruiting drive and get the employees started on training. I’ll send Wanda over to run the store as soon as I feel she’s ready and I’ll stay over there most of the time.”

Pressing his pointer finger down on the table, Tony leaned forward, “But _this_ is a huge opportunity. Our California projections are stellar. The company’s gonna keep getting bigger from here, and there’s nobody else I’d rather have riding shotgun than you.”

Her ambivalence felt like being ripped into two halves. This was the chance of a lifetime. This was also a big step in a foreign direction – in all her plans, Natasha hadn’t considered leaving New York as even a possibility. This meant uprooting her entire life in a matter of, what, two weeks? Leaving behind her friends, her apartment.

Though she would chastise herself for it later, she couldn’t deny that every train of thought sent her barreling right back to the biggest one: Clint.

With a righteous, absolute clarity, she now understood at least one thing: she really was in love with him, and she really wanted to give that a shot. Could it be done from another coast? Was she really going to be a woman who said no to a guaranteed career up-step for a maybe-love?

The longer she refrained from an enthusiastic yes, the more Tony knew he might have hedged his bets prematurely. Still, not wanting her to think he was telling rather than asking, he tried to play back down as casually as possible, tossing his empty shake cup into the trash can and flicking his sunglasses back down. Frankly, the enthusiastic yes had been what he had expected, but he knew that this might warrant a little more soul searching than this impromptu conversation at an ice cream shop – the Big Gay one, no less – could afford. Putting his hand on her shoulder – Tony was one of few allowed in the bubble, and he was always careful to respect that – Tony peered over his glasses at her.

“Look, kid,” his voice softened with both affection and concern, “Take a day or two, mull it over, but I need to know as soon as possible. Gotta start making the big plans.”

His half-smile was mirrored weakly by Natasha, who put her hand gently on his for only a moment before he moved away, jacket slung over his arm.

“You want a ride home?” he asked, digging out his keys, “Cab, if you need some privacy?”

“No,” Nat exhaled, “I think I’m gonna need the walk.”

***

Clint was home.

Natasha dropped her keys and bag onto the table, seeing the back of his head over the top of the couch as he fiddled with what was most likely his phone.

The way her heart wrenched up into her throat was brand new. There was a sort of joy beneath all this fear when she let herself sit with it long enough, but at the moment, it really only tasted like creamsicle – which unfortunately, she could come to associate with fear for years after this moment.

She made it a few steps into the foyer, stopping to stare at the ash blonde of the back of his head. He wasn’t even facing her but she could see his eyes, could picture the exact face he was making as he peered into the screen. She could see his calloused fingers, thick but clever, dragging along the glass. She thought about his fingers, his eyes.

“I love you.”

It rang out like a shot in an empty canyon, practically bouncing off the walls around her in what had to be the most deafening silence of her entire life. Her stomach was a block of ice wretched into her gut.

Clint didn’t move at first and though it was barely more than a few seconds, it felt like an eternity until he turned to look over his shoulder, across the back of the couch at her.

Nat expected bewilderment at the least, panic at the worst. Joy, a smile at the very best.

And he did smile, happily, casually. As if nothing had happened.

“Oh, hey, you’re back,” he said, absolutely nothing indicative of a reaction to the bomb she’d just dropped.

Frozen, unable to do anything but gawk, Nat watched his face wrinkle in confusion.

“You okay?”

There, to the left of him on the side table, were his little peach hearing aids in a dish.

“Oh,” she said out loud, dumbly.


	9. Buttering the Muffin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The straps were industrial strength with reinforcement bars that went between the slats of a headboard or under the edge of a mattress. The Velcro closures were rimmed with a softer crushed velvet to keep the scraping to a minimum – that said, they were hideously tacky to behold, Nat refused to look at them in the cold sober daylight – and they were the holy grail combination of strong and comfortable enough that it didn’t distract from the moment, the moment being Natasha 4-pointed to each corner. The ankle straps had enough distance that she could get her feet flat against the bed, bend her legs, get some leverage but the wrist straps were shorter, keeping her a little more immobile where it came to her arms. The lack of control, the vulnerability was still terrifying for the first few moments when she couldn’t so much as scratch her nose. Surrender. Not her strongest suit._
> 
> Natasha opens up, in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys. Before we begin the penultimate chapter of Part 1 of Salacious, a note. 
> 
> It's been a truly terrible month, hasn't it? Between the Pulse shooting and a few other personal tragedies, it's been a very hard go these last few weeks. I think I've cried more often than I haven't. I make this note because as a queer person, I know how important it is for us to have support from within our community, and so I wanted to say this before we get on with the escapism and I stop bumming you out - if you need to talk to someone, my comments section has been a stellar place for queer solidarity and I respond to more or less every message I get. You don't have to be alone if you're hurting. Please reach out. 
> 
> Most of you who followed me over from Church Bells know that I write my chapters in advance so I always have one ready to go, even if I haven't been particularly productive. That said, I wrote this chapter - and the portion about Clint's ideas about gun control - well before the Pulse shooting happened. If you find it triggering, you can skip over and we'll recap you in the comments, though I'd like to point out that the portion about guns is not extensive or descriptive of violence, simply attitudes towards guns. 
> 
> There is also some light element of BDSM in this chapter; I'll be exploring it more thoroughly in Part 3, which will deal heavily with domme-sub relationships and lifestyle. 
> 
> All that out of the way, I hope you're all well. 
> 
> Hang on, we're going home.

Wanda’s hand came up and over her mouth as she stared at Nat, wide greenish eyes rimmed with her perpetual black liner – how did messy liner always look so good on her? – and gasped in sympathetic horror, “Noooo… without the aids, he did not hear you then?”

“Nope,” Natasha shook her head, hair hanging a mess around her face until she raked it back with her fingers.

They were sitting on the back stoop of the store yet again, a place that now held significance for them after Wanda’s tearful confession about her relationship with her brother. Wanda had come out to check on Nat when it had taken her a long time to come back from tossing out boxes; she found her sitting there, head in her hands, her usual unaffected demeanor dropped away like a weight she was tired of carrying. Without a word, Wanda came and sat down beside her. After those few moments of silence, it had only seemed right to share something personal with her in return.

“And you did not try again?” Wanda asked carefully, a statement that might have seemed loaded with implication if she wasn’t so careful to be soft, considerate.

“I couldn’t,” Nat groaned, “I tried to, but I couldn’t make myself say it again, fucking shell shock from the first time not landing at all. I just told him some shit about how I didn’t feel good and thankfully I started puking up milkshake about three seconds later.”

Thankfully the floors were stripped bare or there’d have still been an orange stain on the carpet. Creamsicle was ruined for life. Of course, Clint cleaned her up, put her on the couch and mopped up her vomit without so much as a word of complaint or any indication he was upset. She told him the tears on her cheeks were from heaving, and he dutifully brought her Kleenex and held her until she felt placid enough to go to bed and lie awake all night, staring at the wall, the sex toy chest, anything but Clint’s sleeping face beside her.

Wanda made a noise of sympathy, reaching to rub her back encouragingly, “Aw, Natashka, I’m sorry… at least he’s not your brother, yes?”

Natasha turned to look at Wanda, startled by the self-deprecation and unsure of how to react when she saw the smile curve up those burgundy lips. Nat let out a tense breath, chuckling and putting her head in her hands as Wanda sputtered into a laugh, both of them leaning into one another.

“Oh, so I guess we can joke about it then,” Natasha smirked, rubbing her forehead, “For a second there I was like ‘Did she just one-up me?’”

“Oh, I win the boyfriend trouble contest,” Wanda laughed, patting her back and resting her round head on Nat’s shoulder, “You have no idea how nice it is to laugh about it with someone.”

“In that case, you should move to Alabama. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye.”

Wanda chortled, giving Nat a little smack on the arm and settling back where she was. The streetlights were coming on, the day dimming down into a softer palette than the afternoon. It was so much like the last time they sat here and talked about things they couldn’t share with anyone else, only with far less crying. Nat liked this better. She rested her hand on Wanda’s knee idly.

“Are you going to California?”

Natasha turned to look at her as best she could at the current angle, “I haven’t decided yet, how’d you know?”

“Wasn’t hard to intuit. You’re Tony’s right hand, yeah? Of course he wants you to make the new store successful.”

There was a loaded silence as Natasha chewed her lip, wondering if Wanda was secretly hoping for a ‘yes’. Why wouldn’t she be? If she could assume that this was happening, she can probably put two and two together that a big promotion is in the stars for her once Natasha’s position vacates. The fact that her decision would impact Wanda either way it went hadn’t been lost on her at all – she doubted it had been lost on Wanda either.

“I’m really not sure what I want to do,” Natasha broke the long quiet, opting to be honest, “And I know that puts you and Tony in a pickle. I really wish I had a straight, sure answer, but…”

She trailed off, unable to finish the sentence as exactly what she was trying to say eluded even herself.

“But you’re in love with him, and you know you have to honor that feeling.”

Apparently it hadn’t eluded Wanda.

Nat looked over her shoulder again as Wanda picked her head up, peering at her in that oddly worldly way that the somewhat reclusive girl would sometimes pull out of nowhere. That was Wanda – one minute she seemed aloof, closed off and then another she was warm, deeply wise. The heartaches, the suffering she had endured had never been discussed beyond her current situation with Pietro, but Natasha knew there had to be rivers of pain inside of her to carve out such deep canyons of empathy. It was beautiful; it made her heartsick at the same time.

“Natasha, you have to tell him at least. It’s love. You’ve got to honor it when it comes. If it isn’t to be, it won’t be, but you have to try.”

Eyes watering, Natasha nodded softly, the words striking into something soft inside of her that rarely ever got the sunlight, the fuel that it needed to grow. It was seeing peeks of the light it had been so direly deprived of more and more these days between Wanda, Clint and Tony – and if she was being honest with herself, Darcy – but it was still such alien territory, vulnerability. The openness. The ability to be hurt so direly. The nakedness. It was terrifying and raw, love feeling more like an open wound to someone as guarded as Natasha, but there was a profound joy in that fear. It was a taste of something like freedom, a lightness she’d never known.

“And selfishly,” Wanda added with another small smile, “I’d like for my friend to stay nearby. But, you have big chance here, and I expect you to do what serves your soul. That’s what will make you happy. That’s what will make me happy, too.”

The urge to kiss her smacked Natasha in the face so hard she almost leaned in and did it without thinking; a moment of succor, gratitude for that much coming out in physical affection would not be unheard of. It was sandwiched between English and Russian as a language Natasha spoke fluently. Despite this, she knew that perhaps the gesture wouldn’t be received as intended, and there was no force on heaven and earth that could motivate her to do anything that may hurt Wanda, even if only a little bit. Even if it would make her feel better.

Instead, she leaned her head back onto the skinny girl’s shoulder, returning the entire “lean on me” message.

The door behind them opened with a groan as Tony poked his head out, glancing around the alleyway before resting his gaze on the two of them, “Aww, look you you two, I wish I had a camera.”

Natasha smiled, “What do you want, Tony?”

“Can I pester you to come spare your ol’ boss a few minutes of your time?” he asked casually, “You’re not in trouble, for what it’s worth.”

“Oh thank god,” Wanda deadpanned, patting Nat’s leg before standing up with a groan and a stretch, “For a minute I thought he found out about our illegal drug ring.”

Tony barked out a genuine laugh, “Ha! She’s got jokes now, does she? Get your butts in here, it’s getting dark outside.”

With a long stretch of her own, Nat stood up and followed Wanda back into the store, detouring into Tony’s office and hopping up to her usual seat on his filing cabinet. In an uncharacteristic move, Tony reached over and shut the door behind them before turning to drop into his seat with a groan. There was gray streaking his temples, his goatee nowadays – he was certainly getting older than his youthful vigor would insinuate – but he hardly showed it except these few, rare moments when just how tired he was had become all too obvious. In another move that unsettled her into thinking maybe there _was_ trouble he hadn’t mentioned, Tony slid off his designer glasses and dropped them to the desk.

“So,” he began, resting his elbow on the desk and leaning his temple to his fingers, “Where are we on the big question here?”

Nat sighed, chewing the inside of her lip but refusing to break from his gaze. The self-perceived weakness of not having a solid, strong answer by now may have made her question herself, but she wasn’t going to give him any reason to think less of her, a worry that she knew deep-down was ridiculous but hey, she couldn’t help the knee jerk reaction she had about whether or not her integrity would be called into question. God knows she was calling it into question every five minutes on the regular in the last two days since he’d made the offer.

Only now, she had something a little more solid to lean on.

“I need to talk to Clint,” she confessed, knowing there was a good chance he may think less of her for the answer but knowing she needed to tell the truth, “And I’ll go from there.”

Tony raised his eyebrows, quiet for a long moment.

“Well, I gotta admit, I’m surprised that a guy is the reason you hesitated on the offer, but I’m also not surprised,” he said, his short attention span forcing him to look away long enough to play with one of his paperweights though he was mindful to look back at her, “So it’s gotten serious with this guy?”

The “AAAH” urge to change the subject and run away reared its ugly head but Natasha stayed steadfast, nodding as though she were admitting to a secret crime, “It kind of has… no, not kind of, it has.”

Tony nodded in return, quietly proud of her choice to speak with conviction on the matter, and his tone softened back into her friend and mentor rather than her boss, “Are you happy, Nat? If you are, then that’s worth pursuing, but maybe he’d be willing to go with you? I’m not you, I can’t make your choices or tell you how to live your life but I can tell you that from what I know about you, you’d kick yourself for letting something this big pass you by without even trying for it.”

“I really want to go to California,” she said, her voice smaller than she’d ever remembered hearing it in her own ears, and she knew he had picked up on it when Tony’s face softened too as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

“Then come to California. If he’s a man worthy of you, then he’ll do what it takes to support you and your dreams.”

Natasha resented the welling of tears in her eyes and the way she couldn’t stop the truth from coming out of her mouth, “I don’t know what my dreams are. Maybe they’re him.”

“Then he’ll support whatever it takes to make that happen, too,” Tony replied without missing a beat, giving her a little smile of encouragement, “Kid, you’re brilliant and clever and capable, and you’re going to do great things with yourself. Most people don’t know what the hell they want to be when they grow up, but let me help you have the means to make whatever that is happen when it hits you like a freight train, okay?”

Months of ambivalence swelled into the knot in Natasha’s throat, her lip trembling only enough to make her hate the betrayal of it. Tony didn’t remark on it, however; he didn’t make a move for the Kleenex, didn’t try to hug her just yet, didn’t do any of the things that he knew would make her feel overly exposed in front of him. Instead, he kept looking her in the eyes with more gentleness than she’d ever seen in him before and held the silence for her to find her words. _Jesus_. Pepper leaving him really had changed him.

When she finally found a thread worth pulling on, Nat wiped her eyes as casually as she could and spoke through the breaking hoarseness of her voice, “I want to go to California, but I don’t want to spend my life wondering what would have happened if I had chosen to stay and commit to something, either. I just…”

Tony bit his lip and nodded, knowing what she would say before she even spoke it, his voice overlapping with hers, “You need time-“

“I just need time to-“

Tony raised his hand to pause her, and she stopped accordingly.

“Natasha, this is obviously a bigger decision for you than I thought it was going to be,” he said gently, “And I’m not taking anything away from you, but we might come to that if enough time passes without you knowing what you want to do. So, I’m gonna stall for another week, and we’ll talk on Friday, okay? Why don’t you talk to Clint, do a little more thinking and make a decision once you’ve got a full handle on all the angles, okay?”

A beat of silence passed before Natasha sniffled, chuffing out an almost bitter little laugh, wiping her eyes again with her hand, “Jesus, I never in a million years wanted to cry in front of you or make you think I was this wishy-washy about my career-“

“You’re in love,” Tony cut her off softly but succinctly, his expression serious but kind, “If anyone understands what it means to give something up to make love work, it’s me. But I gotta warn you, kid…sometimes you give up nearly everything, and it still doesn’t.”

Another long pause passed as they eyed each other, Natasha pondering that dark possibility while Tony worried that maybe he’d said too much, discouraged her without meaning to. Unable to find the right apology, he settled for closing off the conversation and giving her some space. Metaphorically.

Standing, Tony closed the gap between them and pulled Natasha into a hug, “C’mon, bring it in, Romanoff.”

Hardly a hugger (but grateful given the depth of the entire exchange), Natasha tentatively wrapped her arms around him, sniffling against his shoulder. The urge to pull away quickly rose up but Tony kept her there a beat longer and despite herself, there was comfort in this.

“No matter what happens, you’ve got a place here,” Tony said quietly, “And it’s gonna be alright. All of it.”

The assurance sent her into another round of fighting off tears, at least until Tony sputtered near her ear.

“Ugh,” he groaned, “Jesus christ your hair is in my mouth, fuck.”

She smacked his shoulder and pulled away, grateful for the laugh.

***

The secondary battle Natasha was fighting was guilt over not having said a word to Maria about the whole affair. As per usual, Maria was neck-deep in legislative battles that threatened her clinic’s wellbeing, perpetually embattled with the right-wingers hell bent on shutting down her “baby murder factory”. In fact, another Wednesday had passed without their usual fuck-appointment, only a series of apologetic texts and promises to re-schedule. Frankly, Natasha felt she already knew verbatim what Maria would say: “Go to California, you beautiful fool, who the fuck lets a guy dictate whether or not they take a promotion?” Parts of Nat were hesitant to even reach out to Maria, fearing her judgment for her ambivalence. Maria was career through and through; she sweated, bled and cried Planned Parenthood and she’d probably do it until the day she retired. Still, if she made the decision to leave, she knew there would need to be a conversation about it as well and there was a fifty-fifty chance Maria would either be supportive of a cleanly snap judgment (“Well of course you’re going, congratulations!”) or resentful that she hadn’t even been informed of the impending event (“What do you mean you’re moving to California and I’m just now hearing about it!?”).

Choosing to pick her daunting battles, Natasha set about tackling how exactly she was going to broach this entire bag of complications with Clint. After all, this was the lynch pin in the choice she’d be making one way or another – or in her dream scenario, where he decided to come with her to California, boom problem solved – and this needed to be done for the sake of her planning, Tony’s planning, Wanda’s planning and her own sanity.

Clint had a long night at the gun range – he had picked up a few nights a week as an instructor for a concealed-carry class, something he wasn’t overtly fond of for a number of reasons (“most of these idiots really, really don’t need guns”) but it was extra money in the gas tank and a returned favor to the shop owner, a good guy to have owe you one – and wasn’t going to be home until later in the evening. Natasha debated actually going down to Homegoods for a set of pans and pots and actually cooking something, but five minutes on Pinterest and the reality of how much shit she was going to have to do to pull this off meant cooler heads prevailed and she’d just have to improvise. Once he was out she’d text him, tell him to meet her at the Ale House, get their usual booth and tell him over fries and beer that she was in love with him, sitting right in the place she was when she first realized it. Yes. That was romantic. That was clever and sweet, which Clint would appreciate. She could tell him then that she didn’t want to limit their sexual proclivities – they could retain the open arrangement with partners – but that she wanted a romantic relationship with him and him alone, at least for the time being. Then she could segue into the big clincher about California and hopefully the power of her first confession would make him more agreeable to the last.

She was standing in her bra and panties, halfway done picking out an outfit that said “Love me and come to California” when she heard the key in the door about two hours before he was due back.

Alarmed, Natasha leaned back to get a clear line of sight down the hallway, “Babe? Is that you?”

Her voice tinged high with alarm at both the sudden arrival and the reality that her best laid plans were about to be dashed to hell. Clint’s helmet dropped to the floor by her bag and he came into view, rubbing the back of his neck before moving to pull off his leather jacket.

“Hey, sorry, it’s just me.”

“You’re back early,” Natasha said, voice still ringing with mild panic that he didn’t seem to notice as he walked down the hall towards her, “Why are you back early?”

“Got fired,” Clint grumbled, “Asshole with a thousand ‘Protect Life’ stickers on his shit wanted me to show him how to get a permit for an AK-47 and I told him he looked like the kind of dumbfuck who would shoot someone for disagreeing about taste in furniture. They didn’t care much for that.”

“Clint,” she said, the air raid sirens of panic sounding out between her ears as she quickly tried to assess a Plan B.

He was closing the gap between them with a casual stride, not slowing down for a second before he was taking the dress out of her hand and tossing it back into the closet, hanger and all, “Let’s fuck.”

“Okay,” she said reflexively, letting him sweep her up into his arms, lift her feet off the ground, keeping her hoisted where he could tilt his face up, kiss her deeply with no regard to taking it slow. He was still angry and the air around him was raw, ragged with that confrontation adrenaline he made his entire career; still, while he was hardly gentle, he was careful as he dropped down onto the bed, moving between her legs to start tugging down her panties. The jolt of sexual energy hit her square in the pussy and Natasha moaned when she stretched, hands reaching up to the curved edge of the top of the mattress when a memory sparked an idea.

“Straps,” she rasped, licking her lower lip and watching his face to gauge a reaction.

“Straps?” he asked, eyes so eerily light in the half-light of the gray evening it was almost unnerving, “That what you want?”

“Yeah,” she answered without hesitation.

His gaze scanned over her, stretched out across the gray sheets with that almost avian intensity he had about him, ever sharp, ever seeking something hidden to the average eye. Sometimes it made Natasha squirm under the lens, wondering what imperfection it was he was seeing or looking for, wondering if he really had any inkling of how noncommittal, how lost she really felt; normally she avoided scrutiny of most kinds. Tonight, though, something felt different. Maybe all that anxiety had shifted over into resolve, makeshift confidence coming from a deep well of fear, but Natasha found herself reveling in that gaze as she shifted her legs, arched her back to reach beneath herself and undo the clasp on her bra. His eyes swept over every inch of her before locking with hers, watching her intently as she slipped the fabric off her arms and tossed it away blindly, naked but for a necklace and a gaze to level his own.

“Fuck me,” she said softly, hardly the first time she’d ever said it to him or anyone else but she couldn’t recall ever having said it while looking into someone’s eyes.

The straps were industrial strength with reinforcement bars that went between the slats of a headboard or under the edge of a mattress, between it and the boxspring. The Velcro closures were rimmed with a softer crushed velvet to keep the scraping to a minimum – that said, they were hideously tacky to behold, Nat refused to look at them in the cold sober daylight – and they were the holy grail combination of strong and comfortable enough that it didn’t distract from the moment, the moment being Natasha four-pointed to each corner of the bed. The ankle straps had enough distance that she could get her feet flat against the bed, bend her legs, get some leverage but the wrist straps were shorter, keeping her a little more immobile where it came to her arms. This was a big exercise in trust for Natasha, who had panicked the first time College Boyfriend Matt Murdock tied her hands to the headboard with a silk tie until he slowed down, took the time to walk her through exactly how the knot was tied, and kept a slow, patient pace with her until her nerves had dissolved enough that she could enjoy herself. The lack of control, the vulnerability was still terrifying for the first few moments when she couldn’t so much as scratch her nose. Surrender. Not her strongest suit.

Those nerves tangled her stomach into a knot but there was no one – no one – she trusted more than Clint in this or any respect. He was safe, he was smart, he was intuitive and he had integrity. There wasn’t a single thing about him she could think of negatively; even his temper – slow to rile but deadly once fully inflamed – was endearing. But he was kind – a kindness that was paradoxical atop the kind of childhood he’d apparently had. Being robbed blind of a chance for any sort of safety, security or love didn’t usually result in well-adjusted, compassionate people as far as Natasha could tell and yet there he was, consistent in his actions and how they upheld his only pressing ideology: be good to people.

They had always had good sex. Hard sex, rough sex, slow sex, lazy sex, the kind of sex where half of it is laughing (Clint’s favorite), impromptu sex, the works. This was old hat to them, no new rodeo to be naked and together. Tonight, there was something different, something electric. Natasha thought maybe it was a serrated edge to all her anxiety and nervousness about what she had been planning, what she knew was coming but it was apparent very quickly that she wasn’t alone in this particular vibration. Clint’s eyes were wide and bright as he traced calloused palms up her thighs, across her stomach, over the thin trimming of her dark red pubic hair. Nobody talked. They hardly made noise beyond little gasps and heavy breaths until Clint finally stopped tormenting her by withholding direct touch, pressed her thighs open and moved in to press his tongue against her cunt.

It took nearly nothing to make her come the first time, a hard shudder of her core that made her try to retract in on herself, pulling tight at her restraints. Clint kept going, his tongue insistent on her oversensitive clit until she was gasping, twisting, trying to get away from the sensation – not quite pain, not quite pleasure, like being tickled to the point of discomfort but with a building pressure behind it that she knew would result in another orgasm if she just pushed past it. The words “no”, “stop” started for her lips but died in gasps, halfhearted as she struggled between her own parasympathetic response to get away from the intense stimuli and the urge to lean into it harder, take what was coming and ride it out in all its glory.

“Cli-“ she started, the word catching in her dry throat.

He moaned like he was starving for it and Orgasm No 2 ripped through her almost violently, a hard arch bringing her back off the bed as she pulled tight against the restraints. It took a few moments of blind blinking to bring her back down, deep breaths and pounding pulse distracting her until she felt the weight of Clint’s head leaning against her inner thigh. Glancing down, she saw him watching her softly in the half-light, an expression that seemed peculiar on his face. Awed, maybe? Moved. His calloused hands roamed up her stomach as he pressed warm, open mouthed kisses the entire slide up. The sheets rustling, his breathing, her own breath coming easier now on the way down were the only soundtrack.

When he slid in, bottoming out just at nudging her cervix, he slipped a hand beneath her into the hollow of her arched back, flat against the small. The other sought out the top curve of the mattress as he buried his face in her neck, inhaling deeply the smell of sweat, the city, her shampoo as he rolled his hips steadily, deeply against hers. Hours melted. Her cheek pressed to the stubble of his, then her nose as she nuzzled against the cut of his jaw, gasping low against his skin with every slow, hot drag of his length in and out, in and out, slower and then a little faster, a little harder but never unhinged, never out of the arena of his careful control. There was almost nothing said, the strange new charge in the air rending them both into a quiet sort of wonder at how electric, how alive every single touch felt, amplified by something between them neither one of them spoke to name.

Looking back on this moment, Natasha would recognize a slow series of moments where she felt something in her ribs shift, something inside of her changing so that she was standing somewhere else entirely than she had been before, seeing things from an angle she’d never looked out from. It was surreal, dreamlike in a way, but at the time all she could do was moan. Writhe. Arch up to kiss him deeply. Roll her hips back up against his with what leverage she could get with the restraints. It was as if her ribs had opened up and exposed everything delicate, everything damageable inside of her; it was terrifying, but not terrifying enough to keep her from coming again when he canted his hips just right against hers to keep friction on her clit as he fucked back deep into her aching, dripping cunt. Had she ever been this wet? Ever felt this connected?

After the fact, with sweat cooling on both of their skin and the air from the cracked window growing chillier with every hour of darkness, Natasha found the words she’d been planning.

Clint turned to look at her with a clear surprise on his face, unhidden in that moment of stark vulnerability. There was something in that expression that twisted Nat’s stomach back into the anxiety ball it had been before three orgasms pulled it out of her; so much for that.

“California,” he repeated as though bewildered, “VP… he wants you to move to Cali with the business?”

“Yes,” Natasha responded with as much confidence as she could muster and sat up – though she was still naked, laying down somehow felt too vulnerable in the moment, so she curled her legs under her and tried to keep her wet vag off the sheets, “And I want to do it, but-“

“But, what?” Clint followed suit, sitting up to face her, “Of course you want to do it, Natasha, that’s huge!”

His voice belied some blend of excitement and nervousness she couldn’t quite wrap her head around and she swallowed hard, now back in the wilderness with only her feelings to guide her.

“I feel like we’re really going somewhere.”

Clint looked at her for a long moment, so she added, “Us, I mean. Me and you.”

“I do t-…” Clint cut himself off, scrubbing one hand over his jaw and sighing as he tried to piece together exactly what he wanted to say, “Is this what’s been so weird lately?”

Nat broke eye contact enough to shrug, looking at the contrast of his leg against the gray sheets before forcing herself to be a grown up and look him in the face again.

“I guess,” she steeled her resolve, looking at him as evenly as she could make herself, and took the shot, “Clint, I didn’t say yes yet because I needed to talk to you about it first.”

He didn’t answer, looking at her with that soft but clear confusion.

Natasha’s nerve waivered.

“It just seems like you and I are getting more…” the word “serious” felt stupid but she struggled before finding any suitable replacements, “Involved, and I didn’t want to make a decision this big without taking any potential future of ours into account.”

A realization dawned across Clint’s brow, his mouth falling slightly open before he looked at her with what Nat feared was pity.

“Nat,” he started, reaching to rest his hand on her thigh, “I’m crazy about you, jesus I’m crazy about you, but you can’t pass by the chance to VP the company you work for because you were worried about what _I’d_ want.”

“I know that,” she responded, a little offended that he assumed it was that simple but the elation of _I’m crazy about_ you echoing off her mental walls, “What I’m saying is that I really like being with you and I want to continue being with you and for fuck’s sakes, you _live_ with me, so this kind of impacts you too.”

Biting his lip, Clint nodded, “Yeah, I do and it does, but you gotta understand – I can’t be the reason you pass over something amazing. I won’t be.”

The encroaching tears made Nat angry. This wasn’t what she wanted at all, not to cry in front of him and sure as hell not to falter in execution on what she really wanted to say, really needed him to hear. Luckily, the obstinance made her braver.

“So come to California.”

Clint nearly winced, “Natasha…”

Nat bit her lip and looked across at him, caught somewhere between pleading him not to hurt her and resenting herself for that.

“I don’t want to go to California. I’ve lived there and didn’t care for it and all my work connections are here. My brother is here.”

_But I’ll be there_ , she bit back.

Scrubbing his hand across his face again, Clint stood up to pace for a moment before turning his attention back to her, their respective nudity somehow making the conversation seem a little ridiculous despite the loaded contents.

“I mean… we could always do long distance, couldn’t we? I know it’s not fun, but it’s doable.”

Natasha logged that note to chew on later, “I don’t know for sure if I’m even gonna go, Clint, there’s a lot to consider here.”

Clint paused and looked at her as if he needed that repeated, “You’re not sure if you’re gonna go? You’re seriously not sure if you’re gonna take a once in a lifetime job offer that I can pretty safely assume is going to be mostly paid for by Stark LLC?”

Feeling like they were going in circles, Nat moved to the edge of the bed and picked up his shirt to pull on; being naked both physically and emotionally was something she still wasn’t sure how to maintain for longer than it had taken to have sex. Blinking away the tears with sheer force of will, she hardly had the shirt over her head when Clint was on a knee in front of her, his hands braced gently but firmly on her legs as he looked up at her with so much earnestness she could hardly stand to look back.

“Natasha, I need you to hear me,” he said softly, “I _cannot_ be the reason you don’t take this job, okay? I can’t. Please don’t make me be the guy that holds you back.”

The hoarseness of her voice betrayed her emotions as she stared back at him, “I’m not asking you to be. I’m asking you to understand why I _might_ be thinking about not taking it.”

A few seconds passed before he shrank back, pulling away from her and turning to pick up his pants. There wasn’t a notable wall between them but he certainly seemed to be miles away as he pulled them back on. At first, he didn’t look at her when he spoke but turned to do so once he was finished, gauging her reaction.

“I need to think, Nat. Just…gimme tonight to think, okay?”

Feeling overexposed and hurt, the only thing Natasha could do was flee the scene, climbing out of bed quickly and heading straight into the bathroom with a “yeah, sure” on her way. It wasn’t meant to be snide, more so a smoke grenade she could use to get herself out of there, and as soon as she shut the bathroom door there was relief flooding in that she was finally by herself after what had felt like hours under a microscope. Fuck. This had not gone as planned, not at all.

Would it have gone differently if she’d managed to get him to the restaurant? Would this have happened in some different dimension where California didn’t sound so bad or where Clint had no problem telling her he was in love with her – words she had wanted to hear whether she liked it or not? She quickly turned the shower knob to get the water cranked and hot, listening for a long moment to see if she could still hear him shuffling around outside the door. She didn’t.

Knowing he was gone, she peeled off her shirt – _his_ shirt – and climbed into the shower to cry, hating every second of what she worried she was becoming.

 

 

 

 


	10. Menage a Moi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha's listlessness is met with the opportunity for big changes. However, with those changes come sacrifices. The weight and measure of those choices bring Nat to a crossroads where whatever choice she makes, it will alter her future forever. 
> 
> Grand Finale of The Salacious Saga, Part 1!

Standing at the crux of a major life decision had an alarming duality to it. Some moments were bereft of any consideration of the gravity, a quiet reflection that turns into questioning – is this really happening? It doesn’t _feel_ any different. Nothing is different right _now_. Others were heavy with the implications of choices being made, choices already made, choices dangling like a knife over Natasha’s head. This was a huge opportunity – words that kept coming up over and over, ‘opportunity’, ‘amazing’, ‘huge’ – and there was no way to be precious about it, no way to pretend this wasn’t a life-altering decision save for those few moments when she lay in bed, staring at the wall of her New York apartment, remarking on how nothing had actually changed _yet_.

Hadn’t she obsessed over getting her shit together by 30? Here Nat was, some odd months away from that milestone, being handed a chance to change everything, and she was _hesitating_. Second-guessing.

She barely slept. When she finally cracked her eyes in the gray morning light, her heart tugged into something like relief at the notion that she must have finally sacked out. It was immediately replaced by the twisting sinking in her gut at the memory of the night before.

The pillow beside her was cold. Clint hadn’t come back.

He said he needed the night, but somehow Natasha had held on to hope that he’d come slinking back in sometime in the wee hours, decision in hand and able to at least bring the axe down one way or another. This not knowing was miserable.

Natasha staggered into the kitchen and made herself coffee, starting to search for the bread for toast when she realized that – goddammit all – she had forgotten to get any. She was counting on having leftovers from the destroyed plan to go to Ale House. The lack of bread made her suddenly, sharply upset and without even thinking, she took the mug in her hand and hurled it at the wall, barely aware of what she had done until it was in several shattered pieces of porcelain on the kitchen floor, a deep ugly gash where it had struck the drywall. Her heart pounded in her ears, adrenaline jolt having pried her eyes wide awake. Fuck.

Despite how phenomenally stupid this was – was that her fucking mug with the handcuff for a handle? – something clicked in place for her. Control. Finally, a moment had passed in her life where she had actually felt in control of something, even if it was just to make the dumb decision to throw her mug across the room. Still, somehow, the anchoring effect of that moment sent a streak of new vigor through her that she hadn’t felt in weeks, a confidence lost beneath all this waffling and self-questioning. Who the fuck was she, mincing words and carefully metering herself? Who was this woman who was squandering an opportunity she wanted because she hadn’t found the wherewithal to say exactly what she meant to someone she loved?

Barely taking the time to throw on a t-shirt and leggings, Nat snagged her boots on her way out the door, keys in one hand and phone in the other as she powered out a single text.

_Where are you_?

 

***

Sixteen steps down the stairs, taking them two at a time, Natasha came to the main foyer and found Clint staring at her from the door, freshly removed helmet in one hand and his cell phone in the other.

A long pause passed before Clint gestured with his phone, Nat’s heart in her throat.

“I’m right here.”

“Come to California,” Natasha spit out without hesitation, without question, without trepidation in her voice.

Clint blinked and opened his mouth, but the sense of welling urgency in Natasha’s throat cut him off.

“I’m in love with you, and I’m going to take this job in California, and I want you to come with me,” she said with a confidence that was rapidly rattling but still standing, her exhale a near shudder with the afterthought, “Please.”

It was the crest of a wave that had been building for months, that fruitful moment of silence between Natasha’s exhale and Clint’s inhale. It was the culmination of feelings that had been simmering for as long as she’d known him; it was her own inability to lie to herself or him anymore about what she felt. It was a leap into the unknown with no safety net, no guarantee. This was being in love.

Clint stared back at her with those sharp eyes, his mouth hanging slack for only a brief moment before he spoke, cutting back into the silence.

“I took a deployment.”

Natasha had hoped for “I love you too.” Ever practical, she had bargained her heart down to “Maybe we can try long distance.” She had tried to prep herself for “I don’t feel the same way.” In no scenario had she ever even entertained this as his answer as they both stood facing one another at a plateau, a flat space at what she now knew in her bones was the ending of something. Her eyes welled with involuntary tears, her confidence a deflating balloon in her chest.

“What?” she rattled, voice nearly breaking.

“I love you,” he said back softly – no hesitation, no fear, “But I can’t be the reason you hold yourself back.”

Natasha tried to swallow down the shaking in her voice but it wouldn’t be quelled, threatening a break in the clouds that she knew she could only outpace for so long.

“I wasn’t going to hold myself ba-“

“Maybe not,” he responded gently, tone even but sad, eyes on hers, “But _I_ can’t… do you understand? I can’t take that risk. And this is something I’ve wanted to do for a while.”

Another sickening beat of silence passed while Nat struggled to find the question. After a moment, she realized she was trembling.

“Where are you going?”

Clint’s voice betrayed him and broke slightly, “Cambodia, at first. It’s a private detail.”

“Oh,” was all she could muster in response, feeling stupid, feeling exposed and sick and small.

Of course he did. Of course he was. This was Clint, this was what he did for a living, right? Hadn’t he just gotten fired from his side gig? Wasn’t his main contract ending? What did she expect – the man lived job to job, had been all around the planet?

The last thought struck a chord of anger into her that she hadn’t anticipated – he’s willing to go to fucking _Cambodia_ , but not California?

“Don’t do that,” Clint winced, tone dropping, “This is my job, Natasha, it’s different.”

Nat hadn’t even realized she’d said it out loud, didn’t realize that her hand was balled into a fist at her side as she continued the standoff in the foyer. A couple came in behind them, casting cautious glances before disappearing up the stairs with hushed laughter and murmuring. That anger rose again but dropped and fell away like so much water breaking on rock as she cut her eyes over, pressed her lips together, anything to keep from speaking again. She’d said enough.

“Natasha,” Clint started, taking a step forward but no further, looking at her as earnestly as he ever had with the heartbreak he wasn’t fighting clear on his face, “You gotta understand…I want to be with you, that hasn’t changed, but my career takes me all over the goddamn place and I just…”

He sighed, cut himself off and rubbed his hand over his eye, moving to drop into a sit on the stairs. Nat watched for a long moment as he lolled his head into his hands, rubbing over his short hair as he tried to think, a tic that she’d observed him in the midst of enough times to see it for what it was. He was struggling, same as she was. That thread of connectivity tugged her back from the ledge enough that she was willing to walk over and drop down beside him, putting her elbows on her knees and rubbing her neck absently. The two of them sat in silence for a long few moments, each contemplating things unsaid, things that could have been better said, and things that they couldn’t take back.

“When do you leave?” Nat eventually croaked, finally combating down the tears until she felt numb enough to speak.

“Tuesday.”

“Fuck.”

The resounding silence seemed deeper and more daunting than any that came before, but like all things, it ended.

“I love you,” he said softly, turning to look at her only after the words had left his lips.

Natasha studied his eyes, gray-blue and flooding with quiet tears. He’d cry when he felt like it. He wasn’t ashamed of his feelings, only his timing. The envy she felt for him was the only thing that could even begin to broach upon the shame she was feeling for this moment, everything that lead up to it. The walls were coming up fast, brick on brick until hopefully she wouldn’t be able to feel a single goddamn bit of this once it was finished. From the way he looked at her – half pleading, half sad resolve – she knew he could see it rising back up.

“Don’t shut me out,” his voice was rough, sandpaper.

The look she gave him in return was gentler than she might have hoped, less spiteful than her spurned heart might have asked for, but less tender than she would have liked. Loved.

“I’m not,” she lied.

 

***

 

It was a short walk to Salacious, one that Natasha didn’t even remember in hindsight. The world had lost its color for a while. How stupid, to be this wrecked over one person – and one person she hadn’t even been with for that long in the grand scheme of things.

But being in love and its collar were all new hat to Natasha, who couldn’t have found her own heart with both hands at the moment. It had settled somewhere in the mire of her chest, heavy as a stone. As with all great strife in Natasha’s life, detachment was the way she had chosen to survive, and she hoped that the feeling would separate out and drift away soon enough that she could feel something approximating human again. Soon. It never took too long.

_Maybe I was never in love._

Before she had time to even think about what she was going to say, Nat pushed open the door and the familiar bell sounded like the closest thing to home she had. Wanda looked up from where she was scanning a row of anal beads, mouth falling open to begin the welcoming spiel until she noticed the look on Nat’s face. Wordlessly, she dropped the gun down into the box and leapt over it to trot to her, her long dark hair swishing behind her in its ponytail. The moment those big eyes were in front of her, brimming with concern and her near trademark messy liner, Natasha felt every bit of hard earned distance and armor get ripped off of her in a swoop so fell, so sudden that she never saw it coming.

Intuitively and without a word, Wanda put her skinny arms around Natasha’s neck, rising up onto her toes to pull her into a warm embrace. She smelled like clove smoke and a sweet body spray, familiar and safe. Natasha had barely closed her arms around Wanda’s ribs when she choked out a sound she hadn’t even known she was holding back, the act wracking her from the gut all the way up into her throat. The only customer, a lone perv perusing the dwindling DVD’s, looked up in confusion from under his ball cap. Tony stuck his head out of his office with a frown but abandoned any snark immediately at the sight of Nat’s red head against Wanda’s shoulder, face hidden as she sobbed audibly. His chair rolled back from the force of his launch out into the main room, coming to the two without a word and only losing the confidence of his stroll in those last few steps. Wanda had her. He wanted to help, desperately wanted Natasha to know that he was here for whatever thing had just happened – he had his theories – but without breaking between them, all he could do walk over to the phones, forward them to the answering service, and get ready to close down for the night.

After what felt like forever, Nat finally stopped crying, feeling like her knees were going to give underneath her at any moment. Pulling away, she tried to wipe her mess of a face on her sleeve but found the fabric inadequate as she stared ruefully at the dark patch on Wanda’s crimson shoulder.

“Stop worrying about that,” Wanda fussed, reaching for a Kleenex pack from her back pocket.

Nat cut her pinkened gaze to the plastic wrapper and looked at Wanda questioningly, unable to formulate the question. She didn’t have to – Wanda got it.

“I cry a lot,” she admitted, shrugging as she peeled one out for her friend.

“That makes three of us,” Tony muttered, clicking away at the register console as he eyeballed the lingering customer.

For whatever reason, this struck Natasha as hilarious, and she burst out a brief laugh in what could only be relief.

She wasn’t alone, not in the slightest.

Finally, she raked her hands through her hair to pull the wet strands out of her face, summoned up a good sniffle, and took a deep breath.

“So I’m going to California.”

 

***

 

“Well of fucking course, you’re going to California!”

Maria had reacted to the news as predicted. Natasha chalked this up to artful maneuvering on her own part – calling Maria up and avoiding any indicators that there was big news, taking her to Another Broken Egg Café and buying her swanky brunch complete with alcohol, and then suddenly laying it out like it had been written on the wall the entire time. Not enough time for Maria to build resentment would pass, they could have the discussion without any bruised egos. That said, Natasha was surprised by how blithely Maria seemed to take the news, spreading brie cheese onto a slice of baguette and shrugging. Nat shoved a beignet in her mouth to avoid having to respond, prompting Maria to continue.

“This is logical progression,” she explained as though she’d seen it coming all along, “You’re high up in the company, about the highest you _can_ be and not be Tony, and he’s been talking about west coast expansion for at least a year now. I always kind of figured this was coming, it just seemed like he was waffling on making a move.”

This relaxed, knowing version of Maria outpaced the shrewd but uptight, knowing version of Maria by miles. Nat couldn’t help but wonder what exactly was bringing her blood pressure down these days; wasn’t the merit of running the clinic at Planned Parenthood solely responsible for why she was so high strung most of the time?

“You’re awful chill about this,” Natasha commented.

“Because I assume you and Clint broke up over this,” Maria countered matter-of-factly, sipping her drink in pause, “And I know you could use more support than criticism right now.”

Natasha didn’t respond, stabbing her fork into uneaten huevos rancheros. The tortilla was getting soggy. How did all these assholes in her life know all her shit.

“So, I’m opting to be the bigger person,” she pointed and smirked, “And see what I did there, completely invalidated being the bigger person by pointing out that I was the bigger person? And just say congratulations.”

The smirk faded when Nat didn’t look up for a long moment, finally stopping to rub her eye with her sleeve. It had been a rough few days – Clint’s things were few and far between but everything the apartment held was rapidly being packed by a moving company, the sorting of His and Mine being more traumatic than cathartic this early in the process. Nat felt like a walking open wound; she’d be fine most of the time but all it took was one brush with the reality that they were over, he was going overseas and she was going across the country and bam, oozing all over the place (“Disgusting choice of metaphor, Romanov” was all Tony could respond to that shared analogy). She had come to this breakfast with every intention of staying cool, calm and collected about their current set of circumstances, expecting that if anyone could keep her objective about things it would be Maria.

Natch, Maria had apparently chosen this moment in her life to become Zen. Or Zen-ish. Maria’s approximation of Zen.

“Hey, Nat?” Maria reached across the table, her thin fingers curling around Natasha’s own, “Everything’s gonna be okay, alright? I know it’s a sad thing, but you’re about to embark on a- “

“’Huge, amazing, opportunity’,” Natasha responded, finally cutting her eyes back up at Maria, not so much with ire or irritation as with exhaustion, “’Chance of a lifetime, big,’ I feel like I’ve heard every last one of those words no less than thirty times each in the last week alone.”

Maria withdrew her hand but not before Natasha could give a half-reassuring squeeze, resting her elbow on the table and raking back her messy red hair out of her face, “I’m just…it’s great and it’s awful at the same time, okay? And I’m having a hard time appreciating it for what it is when it cost me something I don’t think I was ready to lose.”

The admission in and of itself was more than Natasha was ready to lose, and that reality wasn’t lost on Maria. She didn’t reach across the table again but gave her friend and part-time paramour a soft, considerate look.

“…so when am I flying out to help you pick an apartment?”

 

***

 

It took time. Realistically, it would take more time than Natasha actually had to acclimate to all the change that was happening around her, but on the Monday evening that Clint came for the few boxes of his things with Barney in tow (he owned a car, after all), Natasha felt herself finally take a deep breath and plunge in.

Natasha had rarely ever seen Barney sober and had forgotten that he was handsome, almost as handsome as Clint, with his roguish smile and messy dark hair. They were the same around the eyes and nose. Both carried themselves with the air of guys who knew how to scrap but would rather joke around. Still, the difference was in the expressions, the depth of their stares, the shrewdness in Clint’s lacking to almost bluntness in Barney’s.

“C’mere, girl,” Barney said as he reached out to pull her into a hug, as though he’d been around for most of the relationship, as though he had any idea what either of them were going through, “I’m always around if you need me.”

_For what?_ Natasha almost asked, biting her lip and pulling into the hug with as much heart as she could muster. There was no one she could think of that she’d want to see less after this than Barney; all the ugly reminders of a past that can’t be altered, a path that can’t be changed now. The future of course was never set in stone – she and Clint had agreed on that much – but for now, there was nothing to speculate on besides how a beginning with so much opportunity came to an end in the foyer of this apartment building on a Saturday morning.

Clint hung back while Barney hauled the last box down to his car, waiting until they were alone before he even made a move off of the doorframe he’d been leaning in. He was quiet but pleasant up until now, not having much to say but being personable when spoken to. The professional movers had cleared out around the time they arrived, so there wasn’t much forced interaction. Finally alone with Natasha, he sighed and took his hands out of his pockets to fidget with his fingers. Natasha watched all this guardedly, half-hearted in her attempt to finish a piece of peanut butter toast while she stayed out of the boys’ way, but as he made his way into the rapidly emptying living room she came to meet him.

Looking at him still hurt, but the affection beneath it all had not waned. She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse. It certainly lent the whole thing a bittersweet taste.

“Natasha, I-“

“You don’t have to say anything,” she responded, not curt but not warm, somewhere lost in between.

“Yes I do. Unless you don’t want me to.”

Natasha considered it for a moment but bit her lip, waiting for him to continue. He raked his hand back over his hair, his standard nervous tick, and sighed again.

“I don’t want you to think this is easy for me. I want you to understand that I felt everything for you that you felt for me, okay? I need you to know that.”

That stung. Natasha felt herself sway in a tiny little gesture of lost balance, almost unnoticeable. A forced small smile pulled at her lips, retreated, and then pulled again as she tried to mimic someone who was just fine in the middle of an amiable breakup.

“Then what’s the problem?” she asked softly, still not fully understanding his reasons.

Clint almost winced, giving back the same sad little smile she was trying to give him, only he _was_ capable of actually being a person who was just fine in the middle of an amiable breakup.

“Timing, Nat,” he said softly, “Our timing just wasn’t right.”

The hug felt warm and sad, and neither of them let go for a long time. Nobody cried. Natasha had cried herself out early on and suffered more with those feelings of being hollowed out, emptied and drained, concerned that she was going to miss all the peaks and valleys of this new experience while she wallowed in the ruins of what could have been. She half blamed him for that, half blamed herself. Clint would cry again when the need arose; for now, he was contented with just holding her, smelling her hair and her skin and feeling the way her soft sweater pressed against his leather jacket. He took in a deep, lingering breath before moving to slip his arms back from around her, Natasha closing her eyes as he withdrew. Tears weren’t coming. This brought little peace, but it was better than crying, begging him to change his mind, abandoning all dignity to ease the ache of her heart.

This was the right thing to do. That certainty didn’t come to her until he pulled away, gave her that soft smile, and backed out of the door gracefully.

“Don’t be a stranger, Natasha." 

“Be safe,” was all she could muster in return, another momentary pause passing before he turned and led himself down the stairs.

There was nothing else to be said. Not right now.

When the door closed at the end of the hall, Nat finally let out a breath that she felt as if she’d been holding for months. The apartment was silent, only the noises of traffic filtering in from the outside world. It was still, vacant as she looked around, noticing that nearly everything had been packed away, the few bits of personal touch she owned tucked into cardboard boxes so that the walls and floors seemed naked. It was a familiar feeling, a kinship – the inside of her own chest felt a lot like this empty fucking apartment, whether she resented the drama of the comparison or not.

Her old life was stripped bare to the exposed brick in the wall and the scuffed hardwood floors.

She had wanted change, and she’d gotten it.

Finally, she turned her gaze forward, and resolved to keep it there.

 

***

 

Natasha sat on the stoop with Wanda, quietly eating an ice cream bar. It wasn’t quite hot enough yet for popsicles-on-the-stairs weather but since she was likely to miss it when it rolled around, Natasha had offered to buy and sit in with Wanda for her first experience of the sort in her new building.

It had been easy enough to have Tony’s lawyer draft a simple sublet agreement that let Wanda and Pietro take Natasha’s old apartment for the remainder of her lease – another four months – with the option to sign on once the term was up. Wanda had admitted – lamented, really – that she and Pietro were rolling stones by nature and rarely lived in one place for long, but the way her eyes had lit up when she walked inside and saw all the empty space, the big closet (now only filled with enough outfits to get Natasha through to her flight the next morning and the few days in the hotel afterwards while she hunted a California apartment) told Natasha that maybe she’d finally found a place to drop anchor for a while. This offer coincided with Tony’s formal offer of Regional Manager to Wanda, giving her Natasha’s old job and old salary, more than enough to keep her and her brother/boyfriend living comfortably if they budgeted wisely. It was a smart move.

Wanda bit off a dainty piece of her bar – not out of manners of any sort, more so because the cold made her teeth ache without moderation – and chewed in contemplation.

“In Sokovia we have a saying,” she gestured vaguely, scrunching up her nose, “Ah, it keeps floating about on my tongue… ‘Do domu, kde láska byva, slniečko sa rado diva.’”

Natasha paused, tonguing the roof of her mouth for a long moment as she considered, translating the pieces she knew from her own dialect, “’The sun loves to look at homes..’?”

“’The sun loves to peer into homes where there is love,’” Wanda responded, the English sounding clumsy on her tongue after that beautiful roll of Slavic moments before.

Natasha paused, waiting for some follow up, an explanation as to what this meant. Glancing up at the windows to her hallway, she contemplated the deeper meaning there until Wanda polished off another bite, turning to look at her over her shoulder with a soft smile.

“The apartment, it has a lot of natural light.”

With no further words, Wanda turned back to her ice cream bar and chewed off another small piece. Natasha took in a deep sigh – not exhaustion, not sadness, only weighted with the world around her and its ever running pace – and leaned her head against Wanda’s slender shoulder.

“Well, welcome home.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***Epilogue***

 

_(Press Play - "Good Girl Down", Michael Penn)_

 

A man stands across from the main entrance at LAX, his black sedan lined among many other chauffer vehicles. The sign in one hand reads “Natasha Romanov, VP of Stark LLC” - in the other, a bouquet of stargazer lilies – and he nods at her from beneath a driver’s cap as he notices the redhead’s approach.

Natasha pulls her carry on suitcase behind her and smiles. Of course Tony did. Sparing no expense, as usual. This was something a vice president would need to discuss with him in the future.

After taking her suitcase and loading it carefully into the trunk, the driver pulls open the back door. Natasha takes a moment to get in a deep breath of the California air, the burning ocean scent of LA beneath the smog, and climbs in.

“To the hotel first, Ms. Romanov?”

Natasha contemplates for a moment, distracted by the hustle and bustle of the most strangely bright people, nothing like the overwhelming black wardrobe of New York at large.

“No… take me to the new building, please. I’d like to see Salacious West Coast with my own eyes.”

“Yes ma’am,” he responds, pulling away from the curb, and Natasha rolls down her window to watch the palm trees that line the streets of LA.

 

 

**FIN PART 1**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for taking this weird ass ride with me. It was supposed to be a Natasha-bangs-her-way-through-the-MCU smutfest with no real consequences and uh... it became this. So thanks for your patience with me on that much. 
> 
> Salacious Saga is a 4 part series - this is just the beginning of Natasha's story. I hope to see you all back with us in California when Part 2 begins. 
> 
> As always, the comments, kudos and kindness have been beyond sweet - thank you for taking the time to let me know you liked this story, and thank you for reading. 
> 
> A thousand and one new projects, coming up soon!


	11. Playlist!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As always, I have a playlist!

[Salacious ](http://8tracks.com/sugarcrunchbuttercup/salacious?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) from [sugarcrunchbuttercup](http://8tracks.com/sugarcrunchbuttercup?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button) on [8tracks Radio](http://8tracks.com?utm_medium=referral&utm_content=mix-page&utm_campaign=embed_button).

Here's the official Salacious playlist for Part 1 

Part 2 coming soon - feel free to check out the other projects in the works at the moment to tide you over.


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